Instrumental Glory
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, days 1656-1685: As his friends attempt to bring him into the 'Doctor' loop, Blaine is unaware of an encounter with the Doctor and Donna just three years later. - Glee/DW crossover #8
1. Street Music

_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 78th cycle. Now cycle 79!_

* * *

**"Instrumental Glory"  
Doctor Who/Glee crossover #8  
From DW: 10th Doctor, Donna  
From Glee: Blaine**

**1. Street Music**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

Every morning, his day began just as the one before, and he was content for it. Every evening, he would work his shift at the factory, and it brought him money, and it was all good and well. But he doubted he could ever make it through those hours if not for the other hours, the ones before his work shift, where he headed out of his house, his case in hand, found his regular post, and produced the instrument from inside the case. Whether he attracted one solitary listener, or a few, or a crowd, he would welcome them with the same enthusiasm. He knew his music touched them, and that was all he could want in the world.

The skies had been plagued with constant cluster clouds for days, but on that morning, it was its natural pale violet again, and he looked forward to joyful passersby, enjoying the clear air and maybe even the music he would play for them. He would let the day tell him what piece to begin with and the rest would come from there.

He had seen one of his best days in weeks, and maybe this had only made him that much more inspired, which in turn brought around more listeners. The numbers had dwindled near the end of his playing hours, but he was not yet done, and he would go on playing, for anyone who came, or for his own pleasure. But as it so happened, after several minutes of being on his own, he spotted her.

The girl couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old. Her hair was a vibrant ginger, neatly pulled into twin looping braids, her eyes a piercing blue. She was watching him play with an intent he rarely saw in anyone so young, but he had a feeling he knew what was pulling her focus.

"Hello there," he tipped his head to her. She barely reacted. "You play, too, don't you?" She took a few slow steps in his direction, eyes still on the instrument in his hands. "Well let's see then," he stopped playing and offered her his instrument. She looked at it, then at him. "Go on," he insisted. "It's alright." So finally, she nudged the bag slung around her shoulder to the side, to hold the instrument properly.

He'd figured she might be a bit clumsy with it, still learning, but right away she stood and held it as though it had been part of her frame for as long as she lived. When she began to play, he was stunned. He knew the piece she played, a Mesiaran classic, but he didn't knock that he had ever heard it played so beautifully, so hauntingly. It brought tears to his eyes. He crouched in front of her, the better to watch her hands as they worked the instrument he himself had handled day after day for the twenty-four years he had owned it, since the day of his fourteenth birthday.

"Child, what is your name?" he asked once her hands had stilled. She gave him the instrument back.

"Cree," she said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Cree," he smiled, offering her his hand. She stared at it. "My name is Tarren. Where did you learn to play like this?" he asked, abandoning the quest of shaking the little prodigy's hand. Her fingers had closed around the strap to her bag, and when he looked at it again, he saw the crest and understood. "You're a student of the Isher Academy then?" She nodded.

He would have attended it himself, as a child, if his family had had the means. He had tried several times to win his entry but never got it. For a while he had been bitter about it, but then he had found his calling. It had very little prestige, but it made him happy and that was all that mattered to him. Having heard the girl now, he had to wonder if maybe the people had Isher had had it right all along to keep him out. She was in a class all on her own.

"You know what, Cree, it would be my honor to hear you play again. Whenever you feel like it, you come and find me here again, and I'll be happy to lend…"

She reached into her bag and pulled out an elongated tube, strings surrounding its midsection, curved at the end. As she tugged at the ends, it stretched out to its full length and snapped locked as he could see the strings disappeared into the tube. It was sleek, polished… yet again, making him feel inferior for a beat, though he hid it into a smile.

"Well… looks like you have things covered, don't you?" She nodded. "So how about you and I we give this a try, you with yours, me with mine?" She stared at him for a moment, then she nodded once more. Every time she did, the curved braids would hop about. It reminded him of his nieces, and he smiled. "Right, then," he stood back up, as she looked around. "I tell you, we just might draw in a couple stragglers," he promised, amused at her search for an audience. He was amazed as it was that no one had come around when she'd played before. It should have filled the street.

He began to play first, and Cree watched him, that same intent back in her eyes. Eventually he gave her a nod, signalling that the moment would come for her to play along with him. She leaned the tube against her shoulder, her fingers poised to the strings, and she slowly came to pluck them.

He felt a vibration come from the stringed instrument, and his own hands still. He felt paralysed. He tried to speak, to alert her of his distress, until he realized… it was her instrument, it was the source of the vibration, the curved end… The expression on her face was the same as it had been when she'd played his instrument, and the last thing Tarren would wonder, before his brain stopped working, was whether she even realized what she was doing.

He would never know, as his body fell lifeless to the street where he had stood, day after day, rain or shine, for years. The small girl stopped playing, and having shut her instrument, she slipped it back into her bag and walked down the street, her heels clicking in the silence.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	2. As We Were

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**2. As You Were**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

It could easily be said that things had improved since Gemma had finally been able to speak to them all openly. At the very least, 'things' referred to her ability to get them together and speak with them. There were six of them in the know, and after a break in activity, she had need to pull them together one more time.

It was hard to tell just how on board they all were. She had promised them that she would tell them what was happening, as far as she could, and she had done that. She told them that someday soon, the Doctor would need them all again, to prevent something from happening which, if unchecked, could lead to the kind of trouble which would bring death and destruction to countless people on countless worlds. Naturally, this had prompted them all to start asking her what that trouble was, but Gemma could not tell them, and only when they insisted did she go ahead and admit that she didn't know it herself.

She knew some parts of it, of course, enough that she could make some assumptions, but not enough to call them certainties. She did not tell them that much, because one of those pieces was the girl standing right in the same room as they were, the one who had been born on a different world, in a different time. Sugar, Padra, however they chose to call her, did not even know it herself, and Gemma felt it might have been for that reason more than any other that she specified it had to be kept secret.

When she'd told the kids she did not know about the whole trouble business, there had been some instance of doubt taking up residence in their eyes. If the Doctor didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth, then what could her worth be? Or what if she was lying to them, it wasn't as though she'd never done it before, for months on end, right? She had to find something fast to restore order. She told them how the Doctor preferred to control the flow of information. With how she went about hiding her identity here in Lima, and how she had to go around from place to place, it was better that she only knew what she needed to know, in case someone tried to get it out of her.

"I trust the Doctor knows what she's doing, and that's good enough for me," she'd told them, and she was relieved to see it had brought the mood back under control.

Now all of them had been waiting, knowing that sooner or later she would call them up and ask for their help, and now the day had come. It was Puck's idea that they should take their time after Glee Club rehearsal was over, let the rest of them leave, them and Mr. Schue, leaving only their small group. After that, Gemma only had to come and join them and they would be set. It had worked like a charm, and when she came into the room, she found them more eager to see her than she had ever seen them. She didn't know whether or not she should be pleased by this.

"So, what is it?" Santana spoke first.

"Is it aliens?" Brittany cut right in, getting a look from Santana.

"It's Blaine," Gemma breathed, and she could see Brittany was primed to follow this by asking if she was suggesting dear Blaine Warbler was an alien, so she held up her hand to silence her. "I need you to bring him into the loop."

"Why don't you do it?" Puck asked, frowning.

"A stranger comes up to you and tells you about an alien, hundreds of years old, who can change faces and travels in time and space in a blue police box, how do you react? Now if it comes from a friend…"

"It's probably a prank," Mercedes shook her head, and the others tended to agree.

"Then be more convincing than that. The point is, there's a better chance of it coming across for him if it comes out of someone he trusts, or several someones," Gemma went on.

"So… he hasn't met the Doctor yet?" Quinn asked, readier than the others to focus on task.

"He hasn't," Gemma shook her head, resisting the urge to tack on 'not in the strictest sense.' She was aware that the year before, there had been a close call, but unless Blaine was given very precise cues, at this point in time, he would have no idea, especially if they brought up the alien factor. He had no clue about that.

"But he will?"

"Twice," Gemma nodded.

"Why does he get to meet him twice?" Santana frowned, and Gemma matched her gaze.

"I told you the Doctor would need you all, didn't I?"

"Yes…"

"And you've all met him before," Gemma went on. She could tell Santana had caught on, but she went on. "It just so happens that your first encounter came before everything else that's about to pass, but with Blaine and those others…"

"But what's the point?" Artie cut in, and Gemma turned back to him. "If it's all done by then?"

Gemma could have told them that, but it would only have led to her having to spill those Padra secrets, and she couldn't do that.

"You'll understand in time. For now, you know what you need to do."

"Can we tell him about you?" Sugar asked.

"Only once you know he really believes you. I need to go, so… be careful," she told them before taking her bag back up from atop the piano and marching out the door.

She could have donned her robe and cuff and disappeared from right in front of them, now that they knew, but there was still this need in her to keep this private. All it would take would be for someone to pass at the wrong time and see something they shouldn't, and then all their work would be put to ruin. So she found a place to hide and then she was gone.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	3. Listen to the Music

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**3. Listen to the Music**

_San Francisco, California – in the year 2015_

Neither of them was working that day, and they had decided it was high time they subjected their apartment to a top to bottom clean. Blaine had volunteered to run down to the store and get cleaning supplies, knowing they wouldn't have everything they needed. He was also planning to stop and get them something to eat, to surprise Kurt.

He hadn't decided exactly what he was in the mood for, what he might get for the both of them, and for that his quick errand had turned into leisurely walking about; it was a beautiful day.

He had just started thinking he might stop by the bakery when his ears registered music not far off and he looked up to see the man playing his guitar and singing across the street, a small group of passerby having stopped to listen to him. Blaine had seen him several times in the past weeks and months, and he knew from the card propped in his open guitar case that his name was Monty.

If he hadn't been looking Monty's way, he might not have seen the pair of them walking by. The instant he saw them, there was a feeling in his gut like he knew them from somewhere. The feeling was strong enough that Blaine found himself trailing after them, hoping that keeping them in his line of sight would help knock the memory loose as to why they looked familiar. The closer he got, he began to hear their voices.

"… so important about it?" the woman was saying. She sounded British, and as soon as he realized this, he knew for sure he wasn't making it up. If he could just put a few more pieces together…

"Donna, what's there to explain, it's a… Hello?" the man had sounded near exasperation, and he'd turned to look at the ginger haired woman, only to spot the young man walking in a decisively matching pace. Blaine paused, feeling he might have been intruding, but then the woman looked at him, and he figured it out. The name… that was the one Kurt had said, wasn't it? Then that meant…

He almost said it, almost looked at the man and asked if he was the Doctor, but he didn't have to. This one didn't have the same face as the one he'd known, but one look into his eyes and there was no denying it. There was something in his gaze, like he'd seen so, so much, been delighted by some, devastated by the rest… He had to blink and look down for a beat so he wouldn't keep staring at him, fascinated at the thought that it could really be him. He knew about how it was true, this regeneration thing, but he'd only ever stood face to face with one of his incarnations before.

"I'm sorry, I…" he scrambled, trying to find the words to say instead. "This is going to sound strange, but I think I met you at a Gap store back in Ohio…" The woman's face lit up and she pointed at him.

"Your name is Blaine, isn't it?" He was briefly stunned silent.

"How did you…" he finally got to asking.

"It is! Oh…" she tapped his arms. "Doctor, do you remember, that mall last week…"

"Donna, we really need to…" the Doctor did not seem nearly as anxious to reminisce.

"It was four years ago…" Blaine displayed confusion, and he saw the sharpest check pass through the woman's gaze.

"Last week, four years ago," she nodded. He looked them over.

"Weren't you wearing the same thing?" he pointed to the both of them.

"Are we?" Donna kept playing along, and Blaine could have just gone ahead and told them he knew how they travelled in time, how it was then entirely possible that they had seen him in 2011 just last week. "Oh, I suppose we are. We didn't plan it," she laughed it off.

"Alright, look," the Doctor cut in. "We're here, I'll go inside, you stay and reminisce, yes?"

"Sure, go on," Donna waved him off, and he frowned, going into the building just ahead of them, while Donna ushered Blaine to sit on a nearby bench with her. "How's Kurt? That was his name, yes?" she asked, and he smiled.

"Yes, it is," he confirmed, and at the thought of him, his right hand absently went to touch his left, fingers meeting the metal band. When Donna saw the ring, she looked like she might burst from happiness, and Blaine laughed. He remembered how Kurt had told him about meeting her, and how she had encouraged for Kurt to speak to him. Then he remembered how he'd run into her again, in New York. He hadn't meant to tell him at first, but when that whole thing had happened, with graduation, he had opened up, telling how Donna had not remembered him, how there was something strange about the whole thing. He had never found out why, and Blaine didn't see how he would find out for him now, if she had only met them last week and… "You should come by and see him, we live just nearby…" he nodded back toward where he'd come from. Donna looked ready to accept when the Doctor emerged from the building, carrying a strange looking tube.

"Did you get…" Donna started to ask when she saw him, but then paused when she spotted the object he was holding. "What is that?" The Doctor looked as well, frowning casually.

"I don't know yet," he revealed.

"What kind of instrument is that?" Blaine asked, now seeing it wasn't so much a tube. He couldn't figure it out entirely, but he made it for a musical instrument, and his curiosity was piqued. The Doctor looked at him now like he was properly noticing him for the first time. "Can I see it?" Blaine asked, reaching forward. He half expected the Doctor to pull his arm away, but instead he looked at Blaine, at the instrument, at Donna, and then back at the instrument before handing it over.

"Sure, go ahead."

Something about it felt sort of incomplete, and on a whim he had tugged at the ends. When the instrument elongated and locked into place, now it looked set, and Blaine was as surprised as the others. It took him a moment to find how to hold it, and finally he rested the end on his shoulder before taking a few tentative plucks at the strings. It wasn't so hard for him to figure it out, and within a minute or so, he had a sound going that wasn't entirely unappealing.

"How did you do that?" Donna asked, amazed. Blaine shrugged. The Doctor was looking at the instrument though, and he nodded.

"I know what this is, I know where it belongs." Donna looked at him. "We need to take it back."

"Right, come on," she reached to get Blaine to stand.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor looked at his companion, confused.

"Taking him with us. He's the only one who knew what to do with the thing," she pointed out. Blaine looked from one to the other, and he couldn't tell what kind of silent conversation was happening between them, but clearly Donna was winning. She stared back at him. "Fancy a trip?"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	4. We Might Be Strangers

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**4. We Might Be Strangers**

_Inside the TARDIS_

He'd meant to react differently when they came up to the ship. As far as he was letting on, he had no idea what the blue police box really was, and he couldn't possibly suspect what it held. But he knew the box. He knew that it was a ship, able to travel in time and space… the TARDIS. He hadn't seen it in three years, but the moment he saw it again, it was like no time had passed. It made him think of the first time he had seen it, the real first time. It had been sitting just outside the school, they'd all seen it…

"Where are you taking me?" he'd finally managed to ask, looking behind himself and back again, as though they couldn't possibly be taking him into that box, because they would never fit, not all of them. The Doctor said nothing, and neither did Donna, as he opened the door and stepped aside.

It looked different on the inside, not like he remembered at all, and the surprise this time was genuine. He stepped through, slowly taking in the interior. He only turned around when he heard the door shut behind him.

"What is this place?" he asked. "Who are you?"

"Donna, do you mind?" the Doctor only briefly looked at her, though he lengthened his gaze when he felt her staring at him. She didn't reply as she marched off, but she had plenty of choice words in her eyes. The Doctor watched her go, his eyes swinging back to his new passenger once she was out of sight. "What would you say if I told you I'm not human?" The question took Blaine by surprise, though not nearly enough.

"But… you look…" he tried to cover.

"You know, don't you?" the Doctor cut him off. Blaine hesitated, but there was no use.

"How'd you know?" he sighed.

"Even the most jaded out there will look on this ship and it will do something to them. You've been here before. Funny thing is, I don't remember you. Lived for hundreds of years, but I never forget a face. So the only answer here is… you met me, before I met you." Blaine let out a breath. "And I'll guess, going by this act of yours that you're not meant to tell me in what circumstance. That's alright," the Doctor promised, and Blaine bowed his head.

"Doctor, I…"

"No, really. Don't tell me anything," he insisted. "Donna, too." Blaine agreed quietly, just before he saw the redhead had returned and was looking to them like she wanted to know if she could return yet. "There's still time if you wish to stay here."

"No, I… I want to come," he nodded. "Kind of curious now. Where are we going?" The Doctor moved to the controls.

"Planet called Mesiary," he revealed. "You see that symbol, there on the side?" he nodded to the instrument still in Blaine's hands. "That's the Isher Academy, it's one of theirs."

"A music school?" Blaine guessed. "Is it that important to return it?" The Doctor stared at the instrument in silence for a moment or two. It was clear to anyone there was something working through his mind about the whole thing, but whether he'd lay out the details was another thing.

"It is to me."

X

_The Isher Academy, on the planet Mesiary, in the year 2015_

This place reminded Gemma of her days at Juilliard. It made her remember, as much as her occasional visits with the Glee Club back at McKinley did, how much she missed being of this world.

But for now she had a task to get done, and the vortex manipulator may have allowed her a covert entry, but she wouldn't keep hold of it for very long if she stayed where she stood and did nothing.

The repository was not nearly as guarded as the Doctor had led her on to believe, or maybe it was and she couldn't see it yet. Either way, Gemma was careful. She knew what she was looking for, and after searching through the various sets of instruments, she found the one she needed. There were twenty of them, propped up in their respective slots, each preceded by a number. She smiled to herself and reached for the one in slot number twelve.

For a moment she'd held her breath, expecting some kind of alarm. None came. So she slipped the instrument in her bag with care. She'd only just shut it when she heard the door open. The rows and the shelves kept her out of sight from anyone who might have just entered, but still she ducked around and out of sight.

She could hear them coming, a few of them, going by the number of distinct voices she caught on to. The first one she'd identified was the Doctor's, the tenth, by the sound of him. And there was a woman… That had to be Donna Noble. There was an older man, his voice unknown. The fourth one had not spoken, by the time she got her eyes on them, but she knew him… _Blaine._

They couldn't see her. It seemed she'd gotten there in the nick of time. She made sure to get as far away from them as she could before tapping at the cuff on her arm and getting herself out of there as quickly as possible.

She reappeared, by her count, a few days earlier, on Earth. She'd been to San Francisco before, though not in this time. If she had any aspirations to tourist tendencies, they'd have to wait until she'd finished what she needed to do. The alien instrument would be left, just as the Doctor had told her to leave it, and before long its presence here would draw her Doctor's past self to find it and decide to take it back where it belonged, which clearly he did, if she'd seen him in the midst of bringing back what she had just stolen a minute before.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	5. The Old Team

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**5. The Old Team**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

Artie had been accidentally whacked with his share of backpacks, textbooks, and other miscellaneous items over the years, but today would have been a new one if he hadn't just barely managed to evade the janitor's mop when it came swinging his way. This evasion had come in the form of Noah Puckerman grabbing hold of his chair and yanking him aside.

"Geez, you okay?" Puck asked, frowning off at the retreating form of the janitor, who didn't seem to have noticed a thing.

"Yeah, I… Yeah…" Artie nodded, though he was still a bit rattled and he tried to play it off.

"Hey, I saw what he wiped with that thing, it could have been worse." Artie stared up at him, finding this piece of information oddly sobering.

"Thanks," he bowed his head.

It was the first time they were really talking, just the two of them, since that confrontation over Puck and Brittany trying to break into Gemma's place, when Puck had learned Artie had been keeping things from him. Artie had been wanting to clear the air with him, but he hadn't known how without Puck losing his cool and stomping off, and it had ended up making that he had let the days pile on, which only made him more apprehensive about the whole thing. Now here they were, brought together by a mop. Was he honestly going to let an opportunity go by like this?

"I'm sorry I blew up on you like that," Puck spoke first, and Artie saw something in his eye like maybe he'd been trying to say something, too, and it was dawning on him the two of them really were friends now; they'd come a long way.

"I earned it," Artie insisted. "I wanted to tell you, but she told me not to…"

"No, I get it," Puck shrugged. "If I asked you to keep a secret, I'd want you to keep it, so… yeah." He was not going to go much further in the apologies, so Artie didn't let them wade in those waters for too much longer.

"Any idea what we should do about Blaine?" he asked, resuming on his way down the hall, with Puck walking by his side.

"I don't know," Puck admitted. "We just need to make him believe, right? It's Blaine, isn't he into like wizards and all that?"

"Yeah but it's not like he really believes all that's real, is it?" When Puck didn't answer, Artie stared up at him. "Is it?" Puck blinked.

"What?" He hadn't been paying attention, but then he shook his head. "No… yeah… Point is, if he's into it, we can find a way to make him believe, can't we?"

"In aliens and spaceships," Artie pointed out. "What are we supposed to do, make crop circles on the football field?" Puck had a gleam in his eye and Artie glared up at him. "That was a joke."

"I know," Puck replied defensively. "For the most part… But I mean, come on, we could do… a bull's eye… or boobs..."

"So these are teenage alien boys?"

"Fine, we'll think of something else," Puck agreed, though there was still the shadow of crop circles playing in his eyes.

"Whatever we decide, we should all put in for one plan, all of us together," Artie declared, and Puck looked relatively on board with that idea at the least.

"Yeah, guess it'd be bad to be coming at him from three sides, right?"

He didn't know how fast the realization hit him, but when it did it was all at once and unforgiving. It dawned on him that they might have overlooked something, someone, for weeks and months now. Time had gone on, and he wasn't too clear on some of the details anymore, but there were things he knew, and he believed he knew them for certain.

He knew that Gemma and the Doctor had hatched this plan of theirs together and that they had left very little to chance. They had put their pieces in play all along, so what was there to say that they hadn't been doing other things before Artie and the others were ever brought up to speed? He had been made to realize eventually that Gemma had had her eye on Sugar before he'd ever even seen her and recognized her, and then when he had seen her, he had tried to figure out if she was really who he thought she was, and he had needed help… What if she'd planned all of that, too?

"Sam…" he spoke. Puck, who'd been waiting on him to say something back, looked at him, then around the hallway, searching for the blond boy in question.

"What about him?"

"He's part of this, too," Artie gave Puck a pointed look.

"What, so he's met the Doctor, too?"

"I don't think he has, not yet, I think he might be one of those she told us about, the ones who are going to meet him later on, like Blaine," Artie went on. Puck tried to think it through, but he didn't see the link. "I'm not sure, but it fits, I'm almost positive."

"Okay, well, it doesn't matter either way, does it? We can't know for sure unless we ask Gemma or she tells us, because Sam won't know."

"I know," Artie nodded. "We just need to hold on to this for now, but the way things are shaping up, we might end up having to find a way to convince him, too."

"That won't be so bad, right?" Puck shrugged. Artie bowed his head. "What?" Puck questioned.

"It might not be so easy with him," he revealed.

"Why not?" Puck asked; Artie slowly raised his shoulders.

"We came at him from three sides." They wouldn't be able to do anything, not yet, but now he had something to keep in mind, and he wouldn't let it go. Sam was one of them, in more ways than one, and they'd look out for him in any way they had to.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	6. And Accounted For

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**6. And Accounted For**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

The TARDIS had landed, and though he felt slightly uncomfortable carrying on his charade of cluelessness around Donna, now that the Doctor knew the truth, Blaine did what he had to. It wasn't so hard to look impressed when they stepped off on to the planet's surface. Even if he had been on an alien world before, he hadn't been on this one, and it took him by surprise. There was something grand about it, to levels he had yet to encounter in his life.

The Doctor had taken Blaine and Donna along, the instrument in hand, and they'd all walked until they reached a place the two humans mistook for a castle, a palace, before the Doctor revealed it was the Isher Academy of Music.

"Named after Ilfret Isher, you might call him a child prodigy, which would be the grossest understatement," the Doctor informed the others, pausing for a beat. "I should go and see him sometime," he told himself, nodding approvingly at his own idea before getting back on track. "He was a good man, great man. He opened this school to see to those who shared his passion and his skill. Children come to Mesiary from worlds and worlds away, to study under their masters."

As they neared the school, passing through its gates, the trio had their first glimpse of some of the students, and Blaine and Donna were amazed at how young some of them were. They were walking along, some of them sitting on the ground, talking, others with instruments of their own. It was a peaceful sort of place, and Blaine felt lucky for getting to experience it firsthand. Many times in the whole of his experience with the Doctor, and this moment would be the first instance, he would find himself wishing Kurt was there to see it, too.

It was relatively easy for them all to get through the doors, much harder for the Doctor to keep both Donna and Blaine to focus and follow him, as they were busy taking in their surroundings. As majestic as the building had looked from the outside, it was that much more so on the inside.

"Why are you hiding that thing?" Donna asked when she noticed the Doctor was holding the instrument inside his long coat.

"Wouldn't want to draw too much attention, would we?" he simply countered, and that put a stopper to the questions.

"It's worth a lot?" Blaine guessed.

"You could buy a car."

They came to what Donna and Blaine imagined was something like the instrument vault. A man sat outside the door, a wide and imposing sort of thing one might see in a bank. The man himself was old and not so imposing. He was sitting hunched on his stool, squinting at a worn book in his hands. As he was slipping a bony finger along to turn the page he'd finished, he noticed the trio standing before him and he closed the book.

"Yes?" he inquired, looking from one to the next. "Registration is that way," he pointed down the hall as though he'd done it hundreds if not thousands of times before. They looked to one another, and just as Donna was wondering if the man could possibly think Blaine was hers and the Doctor's son, the Doctor held up a hand to silence her before dipping it into his pocket and retrieving the psychic paper, which he presented to the guard. The old man's book fell to the ground with a resounding thud when it slipped from his hand, but he was much more concerned with standing up straight than with retrieving it. "How may I help you, sir?"

"It's come to my attention that one of your instruments may be missing from inventory," the Doctor informed him, while Blaine had crouched to pick up the fallen book and return it to its owner.

"Thank you, young man," he tipped his head to him before turning back to the Doctor. "And I'm afraid, sir, that you must be mistaken. I keep a firm count of all instruments, those through the door behind me, and those in circulation with the pupils and the masters."

"I'm certain you do," the Doctor promised with jovial confidence. "But, well, would you mind terribly humoring my colleagues and I? Far be it for me to get anyone in trouble, however this was found," he unveiled the instrument from under his coat and presented it to the guard, who took it with awe, turning it about in his hands with care, finding the symbol engraved on the side, which marked it for being one of theirs.

"Number twelve," he read the smaller markings underneath, handed the instrument back, and reached for a ledger. Leafing through it quickly, knowing just where to look, he nodded to himself. "As I've said, you see? Number twelve is still with us, it can't possibly…"

"Humor us?" the Doctor insisted again, and the man's beard bristled.

"Very well, sir," he turned to get the door open and let them inside.

The room was incredibly wide, open… a vault filled with shelving, all of them holding a variety of instruments.

"You hand it over now," the guard nodded, and the Doctor gave him back the instrument. The man did not want to believe it was one of their own, because it might mean his reputation and his job, but he couldn't deny this looked to belong to them. "It's this way."

"How long have you worked here?" the Doctor asked him.

"Fifty-seven years, sir," he replied proudly. "I have seen many of the great musical minds of our time pass through these halls."

"Were you a musician yourself?" Blaine was tempted to ask.

"Never had the patience for it I'm afraid," he answered.

"You and I have that in common," Donna chuckled. "The earaches I gave my mother and father growing up…"

"I bet you did," the Doctor breathed, getting him one more glare.

"Here we are, it's…" They'd come around to the space where nearly two dozen of the instruments rested, each one as identical as the last. Right away, the empty slot stood out, the twelfth in line. The man looked down to the instrument in his hands. He turned back to the Doctor and the others; he looked like he might faint.

"It's alright, no one has to know," the Doctor promised, and the man quietly nodded before moving to put the instrument back in its slot.

No sooner had he done this that they heard a door open, followed by footsteps, many of them. A large group of what had to be pupils came about.

"Ah, just in time," he breathed, turning to the others again as the pupils went and took the instruments, including the one which had only just been returned. "These are the elite," he informed the visitors. "Our most promising pupils. Quite remarkable, you should hear them." The Doctor looked to Donna, then to Blaine, before turning a smile on to the guard.

"Don't mind if we do."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	7. The Elite

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**7. The Elite**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

There were twenty of them, boys and girls between the ages of nine and eighteen. Each one of them carried the instrument which had been put into their responsibility before leaving the vault, and it showed how aware they were of its worth. The littler ones were particularly cautious, but even the older boys and girls had a sense of protection about them.

"Do you need a hand?" Donna asked the girl trailing behind as they followed the pupils toward their class. She seemed to be the shortest of them all, no more than nine or ten, with hair as red as hers.

"I'm alright," the girl insisted with a breathless smile. Donna had not handled the thing herself, but she could tell it wasn't so heavy that she'd be struggling.

"Were you running late?" she guessed, turning a conspiratorial smile to the child. She might have expected her to laugh discreetly in return, but the question had gone and silenced her some. "What's the matter?" Donna asked.

"Nothing," the girl shook her head.

"My name's Donna, what's yours?"

"Cree," she was back to smiling. "Are you a new master?"

"No, not at all, only visiting," Donna assured her. "We've come to hear you play."

"Oh," Cree looked to the Doctor and Blaine, who were walking alongside Donna. "Master Fren is letting you?" The Doctor looked over.

"Let him try not to," he nodded, and Cree smirked, stifling a laugh.

In the class, the twenty boys and girls found their chairs, which had to be assigned, going by the shuffling they went through before they could all settle in. Papers were retrieved from their bags and settled before them, and as their master had yet to appear, they turned their attention on to the one thing that was bound to draw their attention: the three visitors.

A dark haired girl at Cree's side had leaned in and the two girls had whispered for a beat before a boy at the other girl's side had tapped her shoulder and she'd turned to whisper to him. The boy, who might have been fourteen years old, frowned and looked back to the visitors.

"I bet they're spies," he said, loud enough that the others heard, including the Doctor and the other two.

"Gillem!" the dark haired girl frowned at him.

"I've seen it before," Gillem insisted. "Masters from other schools. They'll try and get us to go to theirs, so they get more money."

"They're not," Cree affirmed; she'd decided she liked the woman and her friends.

"How do you know?" another boy asked.

"I do," Cree nodded.

One of the older girls, long blond hair streaming down her back, stood and moved to face the newcomers. Without a word, she held out a hand, like she expected for them to have something, some proof of who they were, and who they were not. Without breaking eye contact from her, the Doctor had once again produced the psychic paper. He handed it to her, and once she'd taken it, she had looked at it, reading carefully.

"They're from the board," she spoke.

"What board?" the dark haired girl asked.

"Ours, Isher," the tall blonde told the class before turning back to the Doctor and returning his papers. "Class inspection?" she guessed.

"That's correct," the Doctor told her. "As you were," he nodded to her vacated chair, and she moved back to her place, just as the door opened.

"Amery, to your seat," the man frowned at her. This would be this Master Fren they had heard of. He stopped when he saw the Doctor, Donna, and Blaine. "Who are you?"

"They're from the board," Cree informed him, and the master bristled at the news, but he didn't question it any further, in a manner which told his visitors maybe he was of a mind that the less questions he volunteered, the less trouble he would create for himself.

Instead, he went and stood before his class, instructing them as to which piece they would be rehearsing. They prepared, briefly warming up, and then under Master Fren's direction, they began to play.

Blaine had never heard anything like it. He had played one of the instruments himself, the one presently handled by a girl he would later learn was named Seyelle, and it had only been him figuring his way around the foreign device. But these children, they knew exactly what their instruments were, what they could do and how to do it, and what it created was a music so devastatingly beautiful that it brought him to tears. It reached him to the depths of his spirit, and if he could stay here and listen to them for hours, he would be more than content.

The Doctor had been equally touched in the beginning, and how could he not? The music produced by the elite class of the Isher Academy was truly stunning, and he had taken in his fair share over his many years of living. He might have been fine simply admiring what he was hearing, but that wasn't the only thing that had brought him here, in this room, in this school, on this world. He'd had a feeling, ever since he'd first learned of the strange instrument which had been found on Earth, and he'd kept having it after he'd retrieved it, after he'd watched Blaine play it, and now once again, as he watched the children play, all twenty of them together.

"They're phenomenal…" Donna had breathed when they'd finished their song. The Doctor turned to find she was crying, same as Blaine.

"They are," the Doctor agreed.

"Couldn't we stay and hear them some more?" Donna asked, perhaps thinking they would all leave, now that they had done what they had supposedly come to do.

"I think we should," the Doctor slowly nodded. He didn't want to tell her or Blaine, not just yet. Part of it was that he didn't have it all figured out just yet, and part of it was that he was concerned what would happen if he was overheard.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	8. All of Us Together

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**8. All of Us Together**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

Standing at the mirror in the girls' bathroom, Brittany was frowning as she tried to fix her ponytail. Some days it just didn't want to stay as high and tight as it was meant to be, and this was one of those.

"San, can you…?" she asked, as the other girl was finishing drying her hands. Santana came and got to work. She always had delicate hands when it came to handling Brittany's hair, and that was just what she needed. Unsure what else to do or say, considering how they were alone, Brittany decided to touch on the subject they had evading for a couple of days already. "I think she's telling the truth, you know?"

"I know," Santana sighed.

"But you said you didn't trust her because she lied."

"Yeah, but if I didn't trust anyone who lied, I wouldn't trust anyone," Santana pointed out. "Besides, I think I was just sort of… annoyed."

"And you're not anymore?"

"Well I didn't say that…" Her hands slipped, causing Brittany's hair to tumble back down, when the door opened and they turned to find Sugar standing there.

"Oh… Hey… What are you…" she started to ask.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Santana frowned.

"We were talking about Gemma," Brittany piped in, and Santana's frown turned on her.

"Good, I was hoping I'd run into you, to talk about the Blaine thing," she shut the door behind herself. No sooner had she done this though that the door was opened and forced her to step forward before she ended up being knocked into, and the girls found themselves joined by two more of their club, namely Mercedes and Quinn.

"Told you they were still in here," Quinn told Mercedes.

"Spying on us, Quinn?" Santana crossed her arms before herself. She didn't go so far as to say 'that's what you do now, isn't it?' but it had been right there in her thoughts. Santana was aware of what had made Quinn go behind their backs, and despite how it made her feel, she did understand it. She would still need time to forgive the feeling of betrayal it had installed in her heart.

"Only so far as need be so we have a chance to talk," Quinn assured her.

"About Blaine?" Brittany asked.

"Yeah, about Blaine," Quinn confirmed. "Any of you guys have any idea how we're supposed to convince him the Doctor is real without actually having the Doctor for him to meet?"

"Gemma has to have something on her, right? Something kind of alien?" Mercedes spoke up. "That thing she has to travel in time, or something else… Maybe she'd let us borrow it?"

"Yeah, I don't see that happening," Santana frowned. Quinn had been able to say something to that effect, and Santana saw it. To some degree, it did help settle her thoughts on the blonde.

"What else do we have?" Quinn asked.

"Stories?" Sugar shrugged.

"We could tell him how we all met the Doctor, what we saw," Brittany seemed to like this idea. "I can tell him how I got turned into a cat!" she offered, but Santana touched her arm and shook her head.

"Stories are fine, but we're all ready to believe them because we have stories of our own. If you hadn't met the Doctor yourselves, would you have believed anything any of us said?" There was a pause as all of them did this considering. It was easy to say 'of course I would,' but when they really thought about it, they knew it was just as Quinn had said. They were willing to accept it because they already had the existence of the Time Lord proven to them. They had seen his ship, they had met aliens, or travelled in time, in space… Blaine had done none of those things.

"So we make him believe it," Santana tipped her head forward. Quinn turned to her. When it came down to it, if they cooperated in a constructive way, instead of bickering and taking shots at each other, she and Santana could knock this out of the park. She had a feeling Santana was aware of this, too, and she was offering herself as willing to play ball. Quinn responded in sort.

"How do you suggest we do that?" she asked.

"It's all about suggestion," Santana had that confident smirk about her, and Quinn returned it. "We do this right, we won't need to show him a single thing and we'll have that Warbler eating right out of our hand. We're going to put on a show for him. When we're through with him, he'll be so ready to hear our stories, and when we tell him about the alien we met, he'll want to hear all about him."

"Sounds good to me," Quinn agreed wholly. The others were easy to rope in at this point. They would do whatever Santana told them to do, and Quinn knew in this case it was in their best interest.

"What about the boys?" Sugar asked.

"Which boys?" Quinn asked back.

"Artie, and Puck," Sugar replied. "Shouldn't we tell them about this?"

"We could," Santana shrugged. "But we could also take care of this, just us girls, and get it done a hell of a lot faster," she pointed out.

"I like the sound of that," Quinn agreed.

"Are you going to roll off to tell your new bestie about our meeting here?" Santana asked, and the lack of animosity here told Quinn they were back on track.

"Why would I need to do that? She gave us something to do, we're doing it," she pointed out. "I trust you."

"Famous last words," Santana smirked.

"We'll see," Quinn told her, as she left the bathroom along with Mercedes. Sugar soon followed, leaving the two cheerleaders behind, just as they had been a few minutes before.

"San?" Brittany started.

"Yeah?" The blonde pointed to her hair, still needing its high pony back. "Right, sorry…"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	9. That Musical Fiber

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**9. That Musical Fiber**

_Mesiary – in the year 2015_

As much as their presence had stirred some suspicion on the part of a few pupils, not to mention Master Fren, once the class had come to an end, the Doctor, Donna, and Blaine had been invited to take in some more of Isher Academy. The invitation might have come out of the pupils' need to prove that their school was doing well, in the event that the board people had any intention of making any sort of changes, but as it served their needs well enough, the Doctor and his companions did not stop them in any way.

After they had returned their instruments to the vault, many of the pupils had dispersed, whether to head into another class, or to go study, or because they didn't care for the board people. This left the Doctor and the others in the care of a handful of the boys and girls, including nine-year-old Cree, twelve-year-old Seyelle, the dark haired girl called Pae, also twelve, and two of the boys, sixteen-year-old Rolan, and eleven-year-old Trilby. They had a way of walking together, as though they were still in some kind of formation, straight lines and all.

It hadn't taken long for them all to realize that Blaine had a better shot at making himself a friend to these kids than the Doctor or Donna ever could. The boy shared their passion for music, and though he might not have had as much skill as they had, enough to get him into the academy perhaps but never into the elite program, it didn't keep him from connecting with the them.

Still, as much as they had 'adopted' the board people and Blaine in particular, it wasn't long that they noticed something of a divide when it came to the pupils from the elite program, and the rest of the Isher boys and girls. As they went by, Blaine and the others were observed by this majority, themselves walking by, or sitting here and there. They looked at the elite passing by, some of them as though they were royalty, some as though they were the scum of the earth… scum of Mesiary. Maybe it was hard to understand why, one way or the other, because they didn't know them very well yet. They just looked like regular children, in no way calling forth any kind of reverence or hatred.

They had only just made it across the grounds and back into the school when a woman walked toward them, the pinched look about her making them all stop in their tracks.

"Who's that?" Donna whispered to Cree.

"Headmistress Renia," Cree whispered back. The woman, tall and lean, stopped in front of the group; she hardly seemed to notice the Doctor, or Donna, or Blaine.

"Trilby, come with me," she addressed the small blond boy. He looked to his classmates. They all had a nervous look about them, but they nodded, and Trilby stepped forward to join the headmistress. The woman looked to the others. "Don't you have classes to get to?"

"Yes, Headmistress," they spoke in unison. One by one they scattered, sparing only a short look back to the Doctor and his friends. All at once, they were left by themselves, standing in the middle of the hall.

"What was that?" Donna blinked, looking after the retreating figures.

"I don't know, but let's step outside," the Doctor was looking, too, though he guided them out the door they'd just come through.

"And do what?" Donna asked.

"Wait," the Doctor replied, bringing them toward a nearby bench.

"What are we waiting for?" Blaine asked, sitting at Donna's side.

"I don't know," the Doctor shrugged, and Donna scoffed; it was starting to sound familiar. "How should I know if it hasn't come yet?" he reasoned. "Besides, it's a beautiful day, we could do with enjoying some of it," he sat back against the bench. Finally, Blaine followed suit, and Donna as well, though with some frustration.

"So what happens when whatever it is we're waiting for happens?" Blaine asked. The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off.

"Oh, go on then, he knows," she shook her head. The Doctor turned to her.

"I do not," he insisted.

"Don't you though?" Donna slid him a knowing smile, as though she expected nothing else but for him to reveal he knew so much more than he was letting on.

"Donna, I really don't," he looked her in the eye; she wasn't convinced. "I mean I suppose I have a feeling of some kind, but I need a lot more than that."

"It's a curiosity," Blaine piped in, smiling as he recalled his previous run in with the Doctor. When the Time Lord tossed him a cautious glance, he realized he was on the verge of revealing that which they'd agreed to keep from Donna and he reined his expression back in.

"Yes, that's what I'd call it, I suppose. A curiosity."

So they waited, as the Doctor meant for them to. To make the time go by, the Doctor told Donna and Blaine a bit more about the man after which the Isher Academy had been named. He told them about some of his works, as they would not have heard them, although he remained convinced that, at one time or another, Isher had been to Earth, or Wagner had been to Mesiary, because two of their pieces oddly fit together.

They had no idea really how much time had passed with the three of them sat there, but then Donna saw something.

"Doctor, look, isn't that?" she pointed across the clearing. They all looked up, confirming it was exactly who she'd believed.

The boy, Trilby, was walking toward the Isher Academy, his bag thumping against his side as he went. The Doctor watched him go, while Trilby was so locked up in his own thoughts at that moment that he didn't look to have seen them on their bench.

There was a look, deep in his eyes, and it troubled the Doctor nearly as much as it seemed to trouble the boy. He was confused about something, and he was frightened by that confusion, as though he had suspicions on its nature, and that frightened him most of all.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	10. Must Not

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**10. Must Not**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

The Doctor had tasked Blaine to keep an eye on the elite pupils, as he had more ease interacting with them. Whatever it was that was bothering him about this place, it had to do with them, he was sure of it. Blaine was more than ready to assist, in any way he could, though he had yet to see exactly how he could do that. They'd spent the night down in the TARDIS, and now with the new day, Blaine was off on his own. It was strange to look at this place, knowing how it wasn't Earth. It didn't look exactly like what he knew, sure, but there were countless cities and countries around the world he hadn't seen, so what made this so different? It was the same year, both on Earth and on Mesiary, and even though he knew several of the people at that school had also come from other worlds, they all looked as human as he did, except maybe for a few cosmetic customs that might have differentiated them.

When he reached the academy, he spotted a few of the elite pupils sat on the grounds, with one of their instruments. They were talking amongst themselves, but whatever it was that they were discussing, they must not have wanted anyone to hear, because the moment one of them sighted him, they warned the others and silence fell.

"Hello," the girl Pae greeted him. He debated whether they'd let him sit with them, but then they scooted apart, creating a space within their circle, so he smiled and took a seat.

"Practicing again?" he asked, pointing to the instrument. "You know, I sort of know how to play it, too," he revealed. "May I?" he pointed again, and the boy who held it started to pass it over to Blaine, but one of the other girls almost immediately reached across and stopped him.

"No, don't touch it!" she breathed, and as startled as this left Blaine, and the other pupils, the girl didn't look entirely sure over her own words either.

"Brin, what's wrong?" Amery asked.

"I don't know, I… just don't take it," Brin looked to Blaine. She had no idea why he shouldn't, only that he shouldn't.

"Alright, I won't, but…" Blaine started, until he saw the woman approach.

"Brin, come inside, now," the headmistress looked to the curly haired girl. The eleven-year-old stood, and Blaine could see she was afraid; did she think she had been overheard? What had she even said that was so bad?

He'd watched the woman and the girl go, and maybe for having been tasked with finding out more about what was happening, he'd excused himself from the rest of the group and walked off in the direction Brin had gone off to. He went through the door, looking one way and then the other. If Brin's hair hadn't been so distinctive, he might not have spotted her, but he did. She followed the headmistress into a room, and when the door had shut, he'd slowly gone toward it, careful so not to be seen as anything but someone walking down the hall.

His approach was slow enough that when he heard the door open again, he had time to scramble and hide. Still he saw Brin walk out of the room and start back down the hall. Once he knew no one was following her, Blaine hurried to catch up with her. She was continuing down the other side of the hall, passing the door they'd come through only minutes earlier.

"Brin, hold on," he caught up to her. The girl stopped, as though she had taken his words for orders, before turning to face him. "Are you alright?" he asked. She stared at him for a silent beat.

"Yes." When he didn't speak again for several seconds more, she turned back on her way, forcing him to follow. This time she didn't stop, but she did speak to him, keeping to the same sort of monotone voice she'd been speaking with ever since he'd gone up to her. "Go away."

"Are you sure you're alright? What happened in there?"

"Go away," she repeated, and it was such a decisive request, that for a moment he did stop walking. Then he remembered the Doctor's request, and he decided he wouldn't 'go away,' but he would keep a distance. The way she was going, he doubted she would even realize he was there if he didn't enter her awareness.

So Blaine followed Brin, out of the Isher Academy, off the grounds, through a handful of streets. Wherever it was she was going, she was in no hurry, almost like she was making it a point to be as unnoticed as could be.

Finally, she'd come to a stop, and Blaine kept his distance, watching her. She walked into a shop, and he crossed the street, carefully looking through the window.

The shop was empty, save for Brin and her curls, until a woman walked in from the back. By the smile on her face, the woman seemed to know Brin already, and she spoke to her for a minute or so, until Brin reached into her bag and pulled out what Blaine recognized as one of the instruments from the academy. He'd thought for sure the pupils were not allowed to take it off school grounds, but maybe she wanted to show her how she could play it, because she pulled it to its length, placed it against her shoulder. The woman stood before the girl, glad to hear her.

Except no music came. Blaine had just barely frowned, thinking the instrument didn't look quite right, when he saw something shoot from the curved end, and then the woman crumpled to the ground, bleeding, unmoving. She was dead, he knew, though he didn't want to believe it. Brin had killed her. You wouldn't have known it by looking at her, standing calm as she closed up the instrument and stuck it back into her bag. Blaine barely managed to hide again before she turned and walked off, out of the shop and back toward the academy.

He had to get back to the TARDIS. He had to tell the Doctor. He'd been right all along.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	11. Things We Don't Say

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**11. Things We Don't Say**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

For a moment after she'd returned, Gemma had been concerned she might have overshot her time and missed the rest of the day, but as it turned out, there had been some kind of incident which had led to the students being sent home on a half day. Gemma didn't mind it so much at this point. Her quick trip into the near future had not been as simple as she would have meant for it to be, and now that it was done, she was envisioning a laid back afternoon of relaxation.

She'd gone back to her apartment, put her bag away, and headed in for a bath. She hadn't even felt herself fall asleep, until she started to slip in. The moment her chin touched the water, she startled awake and grabbed the edges of the tub, pulling herself back up. It took her a few seconds, and another knock at the door to realize maybe Walter's arrival might have played into her waking up, too.

"Be right there!" she called, breathing deep, getting her bearings back before she could rise out of the water. As it slowly drained away, she threw on the first shirt and pants she could get her hands on before hurrying to the door, feet bare and ponytail dripping. When she opened the door, Walter took in her appearance and shook his head. "You know I'm going to start thinking you're doing this on purpose, showing up when you do," she teased, stepping aside.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he teased back. "How long have you been back, didn't you have classes this afternoon?"

"I came back and the school was shut down," she shrugged. "Good thing I had some 'help' or I would have been locked in there until tomorrow."

"Came back?" he asked. "Did you go to…" he gestured, and she chuckled. He still had trouble sometimes wrapping his head around the whole travel in time and space thing.

"Yeah, had to move something from one place to another," she revealed. "You hungry?" He nodded. "Pizza?" she suggested, and he nodded again, so she went to call in the order. They'd done this enough times by now that she didn't need to ask what kind he wanted. When she'd put the phone down, Gemma turned back, finding Walter had taken a seat at the table, where he picked through the latest book box she'd received from the Doctor.

"Wait, that's…" he picked up a pair of heavy books, looking at her with a shocked sort of expression that made her burst out laughing. "How… Wait, time travel," he remembered. He still couldn't look away.

"Maybe you shouldn't," she pointed out, sitting at the chair next to his. He looked at her with a sort of wounded face. "They won't be published here for a while, you won't be able to talk about them to anyone, think of the spoilers," she breathed, and he frowned.

"You'll get to read them though," he countered.

"I'm from the future, remember? I've read those already," she beamed with pride. "The end was pretty spectacular," she held out her hands, waiting. After a beat, Walter frowned and gave her the books, which she put back in the box.

"So what happens to all of these when you're done here?" he asked, tapping the box, looking at her shelves, then back to her. She let out a breath. The more days went by, the more she feared the inevitable, the moment where she'd have to leave him. But then the closer it came, the more it seemed they ended up talking about it.

"I don't know, but the Doctor will probably find a way to have them taken away. Everything will go, the apartment will be empty, and someone else will move in." He knew this would have to be the answer, but even then actually hearing it looked like the most painful thing he'd had to endure.

"Won't feel right," he insisted, and she reached for his hand. He took hers, held it with as much care as he did urgency. He loved her, she could tell… She'd wanted so much to spare him from this; they had heartbreak on the rise. "This thing that you have to do…"

"You know I can't really talk about it," she reminded him.

"No, I know, but… I guess I just need to know that you'll be safe." He looked her in the eye, and she had to smile. "Lie to me if you have to, but the thought of you leaving and not knowing if you'll be…"

"The Doctor will keep me safe," she told him, leaving out the part where the Doctor had always done all she could to keep her companions safe, but that she had not always succeeded. "And I'll keep myself safe, too," she tipped her head, and this more than anything helped to reassure Walter.

"Yeah, you do that," he smiled, and she leaned in to kiss him, because it seemed like the thing to do.

After that first kiss which had ended in her pulling away, they had been keeping to themselves, though it hadn't been for lack of wanting. Had she kept this in mind, Gemma might have had more presence of mind to ask herself whether it was in any way wise to give in to what she was feeling, what they were both feeling.

But one short kiss had given way to another, and it might have been the sweet scent of soap coming off of her that beckoned Walter nearer, calling his hand to come and rest at the small of her back, where it found soft skin where her shirt had come to ride up. The contact had made so that she leaned into the embrace, too, and then they were standing from their chairs as one, and Gemma had no conscience left as to when she was leaving, or that she was leaving at all. The only thing that mattered to her in that instant, the only thing she could think of, was that she loved Walter back and being in his arms felt like the safest place she could ever be.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	12. Off with the Innocents

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**12. Off With the Innocents**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

He must have looked strange to anyone who saw him make a run for the blue box. He was doing his best to be inconspicuous, but his heart and mind were both going a mile a minute, and he needed to get to the Doctor and tell him what he'd seen, because he had seen it, and for that he couldn't ignore it. He wouldn't have believed it otherwise, just as no regular authority figure would believe it. But the Doctor… he'd know the truth.

His feet stalled when he reached the blue doors, thinking at the last second that they might be locked, which would make for a spectacular crash if he didn't slow down. But he got hold of the handle and pushed and the door swung open, allowing him to scramble inside and shut it; his hand made for the lock on reflex. Now all was silent around him, save for the sound of his breathing, and he was so trapped within his own thoughts that he could have believed he was alone. When he heard the first voice, it startled him.

"Blaine? What happened? What's wrong?" Donna asked. He looked up, and there they both were, the redhead and the Doctor, staring back at him.

He tried to say something, but his mind boggled. He'd never seen anyone die before, not like this. The poor woman had been as innocent and defenseless as they got. She'd stood there, unaware that the sweet looking child standing before her was about to end her life. And Brin... Sweet Brin... How could she do such a thing? It didn't make sense, none of it made sense, which meant something else must have been going on, like the Doctor believed.

"It's alright," the Doctor said as he and Donna approached him. "Tell us what you saw," he nodded reassuringly, and Blaine did feel its effect.

"Brin... One of the girls, the elites... They called her in, just like we saw, when that woman came for Trilby. She came and took her in, and I don't know why but I followed her. When she came back out I tried to go and talk to her, and..." He shook his head, trying to erase the look on Brin's face from his memory. "She looked different."

"Different how?" the Doctor asked.

"Like..." Blaine tried to think of a right word. "Hypnotized, except not really... She remembered who I was, and she told me to leave her alone... Oh, and before that, before the headmistress came for her," he suddenly recalled, "I tried to take the instrument they had, to show how I could sort of play it, too, and she became strange, telling me not to touch it, and even she didn't know why. And before that, they were all talking, but they stopped when I joined..."

"What happened when you followed Brin?" the Doctor brought him back on track, and for a few seconds Blaine didn't know if he could go on, so he jumped right to the important part, deciding he could fill in the blanks once that was out in the open.

"She killed someone." The words were like a swift wind come to knock them down, and they stared at him in silence for a moment.

"She what?" Donna was the first to speak again.

"I hung back and followed her without her knowing. It's like once she didn't see me anymore she didn't think that I might still be there. She walked off and I trailed her, until she made it to this place, this shop... There was no one there except for this one woman, and then Brin took out the instrument from her bag, except... I swear, that wasn't it. It looked like it, had the same shape, but... I can't explain it, I just know that wasn't the same, even though she held it like it was. And then... And then it shot, at the woman, and she fell... She was dead, I saw her," he wished he could rid himself of that image, too.

"But she's just a child," Donna shook her head, unable to accept it.

"And doesn't that make her the most unlikely suspect," the Doctor spoke flatly. Blaine could see a sort of rage bubbling underneath the Time Lord's face; someone was using the children, he knew that now... He wouldn't stand for it.

"Do you think it's only her, or... All of them?" he asked.

"Let's find out," the Doctor nudged him away from the doorway so they could step out.

They returned to the Isher Academy, but for how easy it had been before to spot one or the other, they couldn't see any of the twenty elite pupils. They might have used their cover story to inquire deeper, but now with the discovery Blaine had made, it had been decided it might not be the best thing for them to draw too much attention to themselves and to the curiosity they had with regards to the elite pupils and their whereabouts. Eventually, they came across the guard at the vault, and they asked where they might find the group. The man, who was still hunched over his thin book had been just about to dismiss them for bothering him when he finally looked up and realized it was the trio from the previous day. He only just managed not to drop his book for the second time, only standing from his stool.

"Well you'll have just missed them, won't you," he nodded firmly.

"Missed them?" the Doctor asked.

"It's the concert, the one they've been rehearsing for," he pointed behind the three and they turned to see a poster on the wall, inviting everyone to purchase entry to the Isher Elite's Induction Recital. "They just packed them off, all twenty of them on a bus. Won't start for a few hours, you can still make it. Imagine they'll have a balcony reserved for board members such as yourselves." The Doctor guided Donna and Blaine away, and once out of sight, he snatched the next poster he saw off the wall before they could exit the academy.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	13. The Concert

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**13. The Concert**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

The TARDIS had appeared as near to the concert hall as they could get without being sighted by the throngs of people filing in to attend the performance of the elite pupils of the Isher Academy. A trip down into the ship's vast closet had brought the trio back up in what was likely going to help them blend in more easily, and now they were off.

They tried to get in and see the boys and girls, but despite their cover story, which held even here, they were denied access. They were told that the children were not to be disturbed so close to performance, and no amount of subterfuge got them any closer, so in the end they had to admit defeat and, for the time being, retreat. They at the very least managed to secure themselves a good place to observe the concert.

"You look amazing," Blaine had to compliment Donna with a smile as he offered his arm and they started up the stairs to the balconies.

"Thank you," she beamed, pulling her shoulders back with pride.

"That's a good bow tie," Blaine tipped his head to the Doctor.

"I don't know," he fussed with it.

After they'd been lead to their seats, they'd been able to take in just how many people were packed in the wide hall. By the looks of them, they might have been from several worlds, some of them the same as the children about to take the stage.

"Here they come," Donna kept her voice low as the lights dimmed and the twenty boys and girls filed on to the stage and took their places, each of them carrying their instrument. The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some long views, with a few of his own tweaks and tricks, the better to get as good of a look at what was about to take place, feeling that he would get as much as he'd need from whatever happened next.

What happened next, of course, was that the children played. The music had been beautiful and deeply touching when they'd heard it before, but it didn't compare to the way the acoustics of the hall met with the music that was being played. For a while, they could barely remember what Blaine had seen, what they'd pieced together.

But the Doctor had his long views, and he spun this dial and the next, focusing on one child and then another. Whatever they did, nothing would change for as long as the concert ran, so he made sure to take his time in his observations. The instruments were proper musical instruments, the same ones they had seen in the vault and in the class, but he remembered what Blaine had told him, about the thing that looked like the instrument but wasn't actually it, and eventually the movements and the general size of the instrument connected with a memory, and his hands slipped for a moment before he looked through the long views once more. Yes, that was it, that was what it had reminded him of all this time.

He tried to tell Donna and Blaine what he'd realized, but they weren't alone in their box, and the woman at his side was giving him a glance of the kind that very clearly telegraphed that if he tried to speak and ruin this night for her, she would make him regret it. So he sat back, and he waited. The moment the concert was over, they would have to go.

The rest of the performance had been honestly ruined for him, now that what they'd known had been matched with what he'd found out. He sat, and he watched, but he didn't have nearly the same sort of fascinated look as Blaine and Donna and the others had.

As soon as the children had taken their bows and they'd let the applause go on for as long as they could, the Doctor had hurried to nudge his companions out the door. Soon there would be people everywhere, and their chances to make a speedy exit would be dashed.

"Alright, alright!" Donna complained, thinking of her dress and how she did not want to step on or tear it.

"We need to go, we need to get to them," the Doctor insisted.

"The children?" Blaine asked.

"They're not being trained, they don't know what they're doing," the Doctor spoke as he tried to direct them, but it was too late, the audience was filing out, and they were about to get bottled in.

"Stairs," Blaine spotted the door and pushed it open for the others to slip through. The Doctor locked it behind them, and then they were going as quickly as they could down the serpentine stairs. Donna had to kick off her shoes, which Blaine retrieved for her.

"It's all of them, the instrument, it has the same… the same configuration as the weapon, do you see?"

"They're…" Donna started to say, but Blaine had the word first.

"Sleepers."

"Brin, you said she was called in, and when she came out she was different. They will have activated her sent her out."

"To kill a shop keeper though?" Blaine frowned.

"Could it have been for practice or something?" Donna offered.

"I think so, yes," the Doctor agreed, which only made him more upset. "We need to get them away from their masters."

They'd reached the ground floor and, figuring where they would have been taken through, they'd emerged through the back door, all three skidding to a stop.

There were two vehicles, both identified as belonging to Isher Academy. One of them was still stationary, while the other was pulling out of the lot. Figuring the other vehicle was about to depart, the Doctor had led them to intercept it, so that they might get after the one that had already gone. But when they'd reached the front of the vehicle, they saw no driver in the driver's seat, and when they came on board, they saw why. Donna might have screamed, but her throat clamped shut in horror.

They counted ten of them there, still in their robes but slumped in their seats so that the cloth looked like a blanket, tucking them in at night. They weren't sleeping. Their eyes were open, their faces lined with the fear in the final moments of their short lives. A pungent smell still hung in the air, and they instinctively covered their mouths before climbing out from the vehicle in haste.

Donna didn't know that she could ever scrub the image from her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Her heart ached for the little souls, the boys and girls she had seen alive and smiling only minutes ago.

"Ten dead… that's half…" Blaine coughed, equally traumatized. "But why… why now?" The Doctor breathed deep from the cool clean air.

"Separate the weak from the strong… I think this was a test. They failed."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	14. Leading Instincts

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**14. Leading Instincts**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

The only lead they had, if they had any hope of finding those ten children who'd been driven away on the second vehicle, was to head back to the Isher Academy. The Doctor, Donna, and Blaine made back for the TARDIS, and it took them there, they hoped, in time to get ahead of their return. But when they arrived, they were quickly proven wrong, as they were informed the pupils had not yet returned. They would wait a while, but even then they had a feeling it would be in vain.

"What do we do now?" Blaine asked.

"They'll have plenty to answer for if they come back here," Donna shivered, remembering the boys and girls dead on their bus. "Why we even thought they'd come back…"

"What else would they do though?" Blaine couldn't make sense of it. "Where'd they take them?"

The Doctor was trying to answer that question himself, and there just wasn't enough information between all of them, no matter how he pieced things together, for any of it to make sense, and that knowledge alone was enough to send his frustration through the roof. Ten children had just been senselessly murdered, and ten more were at risk, pawns of some twisted game they didn't know the end of yet, and every minute they wasted here was one more minute of…

"Doctor?" Donna's voice had gone sharper, and he turned to see what was causing her concern. Donna nodded to her side, to Blaine, and the Doctor looked to the young man… and frowned.

"Blaine? What's the matter?" he stepped up, waving his hand before his face.

"I don't… I don't know…" he blinked. He was staring into nowhere, standing on the spot as though some part of him had gone rogue, wanting to flee, but he wouldn't let it. "Doctor, make it stop."

"Make what…"

"It wants me to go… go somewhere, I don't understand…" Blaine tried not to sound so concerned, but he couldn't help himself.

"Do you know the place?" the Doctor asked.

"No, I just… I know if I start walking I'll go somewhere…"

"Don't resist it," the Doctor started to understand.

"Doctor…" Donna frowned.

"Wherever you go, we'll be there, too. Do it," the Doctor insisted. Blaine hesitated a few moments more, breathing deep, but he allowed himself to take a step forward, and once he did, his feet took the lead, and he was marching away from the Isher Academy. "Better not lose him," the Doctor led Donna off to follow him.

"What's doing this to me?" Blaine asked.

"The children were activated," the Doctor replied.

"But I'm not…"

"The instruments made them susceptible, made them tools to be used. You used one of them, back in San Francisco, remember?"

"It was only for a minute!" Donna gasped.

"Which is probably by he's got some control left. Not a full conversion, just enough to help us," the Doctor tried not to sound so happy, but they'd just caught a break.

"What is it going to make me do?" Blaine asked. "I don't want to hurt anyone," he blinked, still walking.

"You won't," the Doctor reassured him. "I won't let it get to that."

"If there's no other way, you need to k…"

"I said I wouldn't let it get to that," the Doctor kept him from saying those words, as noble as they might have been. "We put an end to all this, and you can go home to that husband of yours, how does that sound?"

"Good, it sounds good," Blaine breathed. Thinking of Kurt, he didn't feel nearly as trapped now. Regardless, they were still moving along, so he did all he could, and he kept putting one foot in front of the next. "We're almost there," he declared after a few more minutes.

"You feel something?" Donna asked.

"No, I can see the bus," he pointed, and now they saw it, too, parked next to a large circular structure. His feet were taking him in that direction, which as good as confirmed they were heading in that direction. "What if I get to that door and I can't open it? Not looking forward to running into that thing over and over until it yields…"

"Let me worry about that," the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. They were getting closer, and now there was no doubt exactly where Blaine was being led to enter, so the Doctor went ahead of him, getting the door open so that they could all step through.

They barely had time to step through that the door swung shut behind them, clicked back into place. When the Doctor tried to open it again, he couldn't do it. He tried the sonic again, but it wouldn't do a thing, no matter how much he yelled at it.

"Great, now we're stuck here," Donna muttered.

"It's alright, we'll find another way out," the Doctor told her.

"Only one way out," Blaine piped in.

"Do you know where it… where it is," the Doctor turned to him, but when he saw his face, he reached to pull Donna back.

"Blaine, can you still hear me?" he tested.

"I hear you," Blaine told him, though his voice was flatter now, and if they'd heard Brin earlier, the way he had, they would have been even more alarmed than they already were. "I'm still here. I'm still me. It's just… I know what I'm supposed to do, so it has to be what they're supposed to do, too."

"Blaine, the time to give into it is over, do you understand? You have to fight it now."

"I'm trying. I only played it once…"

"Maybe that was enough," Donna suggested. "After that, if he kept hearing it…"

"The concert," Blaine replied flatly.

"Keep fighting," the Doctor urged on.

"Doctor, they're here. The pupils, the elite. They're here, I can feel them."

"What are they here for?" the Doctor felt he knew the answer, but he had to hear it.

"It's like you said, the concert was a test, and so's this, but this time… they're after each other, kill or be killed."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	15. Paths Unmade

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**15. Paths Unmade**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

She'd been having the most wonderful dream, where Walter was chasing her through the TARDIS, and she was laughing because she had a pair of books in hand and she wouldn't let him have them. Every time he'd think he'd be about to catch up to her, they would turn a corner, where he would suddenly find himself alone, until she whistled and he realized she'd somehow ended up behind him, and then they were off again.

When she woke up, it took her a moment to both realize she was waking, and to stop frowning at being pulled away from that dream. But then as she did wake up, and she felt the arms around her, she opened her eyes and it all came back to her, what had happened before she'd drifted off to sleep, her head spinning the way one might spin while riding a carousel. She was at peace, exhilarated… She looked to the side, where Walter still slept, holding her.

"Damn…" she breathed, closing her eyes. Not to be mistaken, she was not regretting the act itself. Between being stuck out here in Lima, and travelling with the Doctor before that, and being perpetually single before that… She felt shivers just thinking of some of the things they'd done… That was not the problem. But she'd tried so hard not to let them get too close, both of them knowing the inevitable outcome, and that would have all been fine except they'd gone and had to fall in love. She couldn't stay away from him any more than Walter could stay away from her.

When he started to stir, she just watched him, the slow process of his thoughts realigning themselves. She could almost pinpoint the moment where his mind recalled what they'd done before, as his arms shifted and he confirmed she was still there.

"Evening," she spoke softly, kissing him. He kissed her back, pulling her on top of him. She laughed, cupping his cheek. "Do you know what, I'm hungry again." His eyes glinted. "Food, for food," she specified, then after a moment, "Although I wouldn't say no to increasing that need just a bit."

"Make it worth our while," Walter agreed, nodding, and she matched the gesture before receiving a fierce kiss that she responded to in equal measure. She could feel his hands on her, and if there was a worse time for her to actually notice her phone lighting up on the nightstand, she had to imagine it would be forthcoming. She pushed it out of her head, even though she'd recognized the ID image she'd given to the one was texting her now. It could wait, and it did… and by the time she did get around to looking, there were three more messages waiting, all of them from the same number.

As they had agreed, Gemma and Walter had dressed and headed out to get something to eat, and over the car ride, she'd told him about the messages.

"I'll talk to him at school tomorrow," she shook her head.

"What if it's important?" Walter had pointed out.

"I am so not in the mood right now," she chuckled, looking at him, and he smirked.

"Look, I don't mind either way," he promised. She sighed, considering their options, and finally she sighed, agreeing. She texted Artie back, asking if he could meet them at the mall. The last thing she needed was to show up at the Abrams' home and have his mother remember her from nearly ten years ago, looking almost exactly the same.

Gemma and Walter had time to eat by the time Artie showed up, and Walter left them on their own, while he went off to the bookstore.

"Artie, if you're not about to tell me you've sprouted a third leg, or a Dalek popped up on your front door step…" Gemma sighed.

"What's a Dalek?" he frowned.

"It's so cute that you don't know…" she muttered to herself. "What I'm trying to say is I gave you that number in case of emergencies or…"

"Sam Evans," he said, and she sighed again.

"What about him?"

"He's one of us, isn't he? He's met the Doctor, or… or he's going to meet him eventually?" Artie asked, and Gemma sat up, running a hand through her hair and trying to push herself back into business mode, even though her brain was still in that trilling little cloud of carefree happiness and wanted to stay there more than anything.

"He will meet him," she confirmed.

"When you subbed his class, when I tried to use him to get to you…"

"I was helping him over there, yes," she came right out with it, figuring at this point, with how far they'd gone, there was just no point in pretending like this might be something that needed to be known.

"Woah…" Artie breathed. "So then… if you were helping him in his future, then whatever it is we're supposed to be doing for the Doctor, he knew what it was already?" he tried to put it all together.

"Yes, he did."

"Did you ask him about it? He could tell you everything."

"Artie, we can't do that," she shook her head.

"Oh, right, because of the time," he remembered, now feeling stupid for even bringing it up.

"Right, because of that," she smiled.

"But we're going to have to bring him into this somehow, won't we? Same as we're doing for Blaine now?"

"Yes," Gemma confirmed. "Think you could take care of it?" she asked, sensing how much he felt the need to help her and the Doctor both. When she put the request on him, he sat up with something like pride.

"I can, I will," he vowed.

"Alright, then off you go, just remember…"

"Third leg, Da…" he started, then frowned, not remembering.

"Dalek," she nodded. He shrugged as though to say 'I wouldn't even know.' "Think one of these," she grabbed the pepper shaker off the table, "With an eye stalk, a sucker and a shooter, talking like this," she roughed her voice in the cadence she heard in nightmares. Seeing his eyes go wide with curiosity, she shook her head. "Trust me, you're better off not knowing. Off you go."

When she caught up with Walter, Gemma found him browsing through new releases, and it reminded her of the dream she'd been having before waking up. Maybe it would make things harder in the end, but she wouldn't mind so much if he didn't either.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	16. Endgame Mode

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**16. Endgame Mode**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

Blaine had felt for a time as though his body had been coiled with chains, weighing him down, taking the control away from him. He felt those chains release, if only a little, as the Doctor had his hands on either side of his face. When he opened his eyes again, he felt a breathe of relief go through him.

"It's not a complete fix, understand? You need to keep fighting it," the Doctor instructed him.

"Got it," Blaine promised. He was doing his best not to let it all get to him, but it still felt like there was something inside him, something evil and dangerous, and he just wanted it gone.

"We don't know what we're walking into, don't wander off," the Doctor warned the pair of them, and with silent nods, they continued on their way. They went down the hallway, which appeared to curve and go on endlessly.

"What if it just keeps going around?" Donna pointed out. "A circle… or a spiral? It might never e…" She was silenced when Blaine stepped up behind her and clamped his hand over her mouth. For a second, he could tell she was startled, thinking maybe he had lost control.

"No, it's alright," he whispered. "Shh, someone's coming." He could feel them. He didn't know how, but he could, and he knew if they weren't careful, they would be found. He didn't know what would happen when they'd see them, but going off of what he was feeling, what he was working to supress, he didn't think being scared was such a bad idea. Then he remembered the others, the children dead on the bus, and he found a new resolve.

They'd gone on down the hall, and now they could all hear what Blaine had heard. The air was so heavy around them, the mood tense… They knew whatever happened next would test them all in ways they couldn't predict.

Edging forward, they were finally able to get a visual on who was out there. There were two of them. One was Gillem, the boy who had first challenged their presence among them in class. The other was a girl, one of the older ones, possibly eighteen, nineteen years old. They didn't know her name, but they remembered her. She'd been calm, smiling, just the day before. The girl they spied now, had nothing of a smile about her. Both of them had objects balanced against their shoulder. They wouldn't call them instruments. They looked similar, yes, but those were not musical instruments, any one of them could see it.

Blaine had told it true, they looked the same. But the Doctor could see them, and it was just as he had started to figure out. The objects… the weapons… He had never seen those instruments before, and now he knew why. They had been fashioned to operate like mirrors to the weapons, and they had chosen those pupils they could best train to operate them, under the guise of musical training. Looking at them now, it was easy to see. They walked with their weapons leaning to their bodies like they were as integral a part of who they were as their arms and legs and fingers were.

"There's only the two of them," Donna whispered. "They know us, if we go to them…"

The girl dodged, Gillem side swiped, and the part that might possibly haunt them worse than the rest revealed itself as they watched the pair of them moving around one another. Yes, they had been trained with their instruments, which made that they knew how to use these weapons. But in no part of their training, whether it was in class or on these so-called 'practice runs,' where they had been loosed on unsuspecting innocents like the woman in the shop, did they have to face a target that resisted, that fought in any way for their survival. They themselves had never been in danger. So now, as helpless as they were to the commands imprinted to their minds, their training did not reach so far as basic self defense. They were children, they were in danger, and deep down, trance or no, they knew. They were not fighters. They were musicians, and it was kill or be killed, and all the trance had deprived them of was the knowledge that they didn't want to be doing this, or that there could ever be another way out.

The girl understood this very well, as much as she understood she had a vertical advantage over the shorter, frailer boy. The trio, looking on, had no way of recovering from their realizations in time. All they could do was stand witness as the eleventh of the elite pupils from the Isher Academy fell. His death had been quick, but not so much that they could delude themselves into thinking he hadn't felt any pain. That much they could see on his face. Gillem's deep brown eyes had held their fear when they froze and moved no more. The girl who had killed him spared him only so much of a moment as it took to confirm he was dead before she stepped back and moved up the hall.

When she saw the Doctor, Donna, and Blaine, she froze, same as they did. She looked to each of them, their faces, their hands. They were no threat; they were not targets. She didn't know what to do about that, they could tell, though the one thing they could almost confirm was that, so long as it remained this way, she would not hurt them. The Doctor took this as an opportunity.

"Hello… I'm the Doctor, and this is Donna, and Blaine… You remember, we came to your class. What's your name?" She stared at them, and there was something different.

"Doctor, I think she remembers… I think she's not…" Donna blinked.

"She wasn't expecting us, the shock may have broken her out for a moment," he guessed aloud, but even as he said this, it was like watching a trap snap back shut. "And she's gone again."

"But it's something," Blaine tried for optimism.

"What's your name?" the Doctor tried again. The girl stared at them.

"Vinya," she declared flatly.

"Good," the Doctor nodded. "Good, that's…"

"Three will be chosen, the three who survive," she cut him off. They hesitated.

"What does that mean?" Donna asked.

"Three will be chosen, the three who survive," Vinya repeated, in the same unchanged tone.

"Not much of a choice then, is it?" the Doctor remarked.

"Three will be chosen, the three who survive."

"Is that the only one you've got?"

She didn't rote off her line a fourth time. Suddenly she paused and her head turned back to look up the hall, past all of them; at the same time, Blaine had looked up, like they'd both sensed the same thing at once, while the others were clueless. Vinya stalked off, and considering what they'd seen so far, they let her go. When Donna moved up to Gillem, they let her, though they kept their eyes open for any incomings. She shut the boy's eyes, pressing a regretful hand to his head before she could stand again, swiping tears from her eyes.

"Is that what's going to happen to me?" Blaine was scared again, which only made it harder to keep control of himself.

"You know we won't let it happen, we've been through this," the Doctor promised.

"I know, but…" he looked to the boy on the ground. The Doctor's stance did not change.

"It won't happen. We need to keep moving."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	17. Fighting Back

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**17. Fighting Back**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

As they'd progressed, the Doctor and his companions quickly understood that the children had been brought into these winding corridors spread out and on their own, rather than unleashing them all at once in a free for all. From their entry they would then have been forced to seek each other out, unaware of who they would come face to face with. If they carried on in this fashion, sooner or later those who had survived would leave their dead friends in their wake until the final three were the only ones standing.

The Doctor, Donna, and Blaine were all edging forward with their own amount of anxiety, like something out of a horror movie, which was in no way aided by the very sudden and shrill scream they heard come from down the hall.

"That doesn't sound like someone that's brainwashed," Donna muttered as they ran toward the sound.

The one who'd screamed was Pae. The twelve-year-old girl was sitting with her back to the wall, her arms keeping the weapon close to her body like a shield, or a protector, but she was crying, cowering… Whatever hold they'd had on her no longer had any effect, that much was certain, and when he saw this, the Doctor motioned rapidly for her to scuttle toward him, and both Donna and Blaine imitated him. If she was seeing them, she was ignoring them.

But she wasn't ignoring them, which they understood this when they inched further on and saw the other two. Trilby and Seyelle were circling one another, looking for an opening and all the while doing their best to keep the other from finding _their_ opening. Whatever had broken the trance's hold on Pae had clearly not affected the others.

Eventually she did look over at them, and Blaine had been ready to pitch forward to go and pull her over to them, but the Doctor stopped him.

"Don't think they won't see you."

"The other one, she didn't hurt me," Blaine pointed out. "We're not their targets."

"Targets are missed all the time," the Doctor countered. "I know you want to help her, all of them, and so do I, just let me do one thing first." Pointing his sonic screwdriver in the direction of the circling duellers, he might well have crossed his fingers if he was the finger crossing type. If this worked, they'd have a very small window to act in.

When both Seyelle and Trilby suddenly stopped and looked down at their weapons, they knew it had worked, that the weapons were now inactive. Pae had realized it as well, as separated as she was from the trance still holding the others, and she came to stand back up on her feet, just as Seyelle looked back up at the boy standing across from her. Whatever she intended to do, Pae understood it faster than the other three ever did, because all of a sudden the cower was gone from her, and she lunged forward, they had to guess, in order to push Trilby out of the way.

But then Seyelle had already made her move, swinging her deactivated weapon underhand, in order to use it as a blunt object, in particular its pointed end. A collective cry rang out in warning from the Doctor and the others, but it was too late, and everything came to a stop with Trilby standing oblivious while Seyelle kept the grip on her weapon, its point buried in Pae's chest.

"Let me go…" her voice was weak, her eyes welling up again as she looked into her friend's face. "Please… Seyelle… It's not… us…" There was not one flicker in the girl's eyes, so it might have been that she was honoring Pae's request, or it could just as well have been that she knew the damage had been done, and there was no point dragging this on any further, so she pulled the weapon loose. Trilby had already gone, they realized, as Seyelle must have. Pae hadn't even hit the ground that the other girl had already turned and walked away.

Blaine was the first to get to the girl bleeding and wheezing on the ground, and he pulled her into his arms. Try as he might to delude himself into thinking there was anything to be done to save her, there was no point, and the best he could do was to make sure she wouldn't die alone. Her attempts to speak were brief and quickly abandoned. Still she looked to the three of them crowded around her, and her eyes did all the pleading she could have done: make this stop. She had no delusions for her life either, but her friends were still out there. They hoped she knew they would do everything they could for them, because before they could get a single word in, her eyes had fixed and she was gone.

"I could have saved her," Blaine couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

"No," the Doctor spoke, his voice flat; he knew it was the truth, but in both of his hearts he wished no more than to have the ability in him to think otherwise.

Then there was a noise down the hall.

"What was that?" Donna asked, her voice trembling.

"Wasn't sure that would hold," the Doctor breathed, hurrying on. Donna looked to Blaine, who carefully laid down Pae's body. She offered her hand and he took it, standing up so that they could follow.

They found the Doctor standing in the middle of the hall when they reached him, but it wasn't until they got to stand on either side of him that they saw why he'd stopped. Trilby, who had slipped away before, now lay dead on the ground.

"Seyelle?" Donna asked.

"No, it was the little one," the Doctor shook his head.

"Cree…" Donna bowed her head.

"Thirteen now…" They fell silent; it was a good thing.

"Help me…" a call came from further on, and they hurried, finding Amery, sitting on the ground and holding her leg. When she saw the Doctor coming, she tried to stand, which proved pointless. Her leg was broken, they could see. "What's happening?" she asked when they helped her up. Blaine took on the task of supporting her. "What is that thing, it's not…" she looked at her weapon, lying on the ground.

"It's alright, we've got you," Blaine tried to sound reassuring. They'd let Pae down; they'd keep Amery safe.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	18. Mission Anderson

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**18. Mission Anderson**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

It had been Brittany's idea. It was no doubt nothing more than a comment in passing, but the more they'd thought about it, they'd known it might have been the easiest option. Now all they had to do was convince Gemma to do something for them first… If she didn't laugh in their faces, it would be a good start.

They found her as she was getting out of the teachers' lounge, and Sugar maneuvered her toward the choir room, where they asked to speak with her. When she followed, they shut the doors.

"What's going on?" Gemma asked hesitantly. "Did you all just…"

"We need your help, to convince Blaine about the Doctor, like you asked?" Quinn started to explain.

"Right?" Gemma still waited to see where they were headed.

"Okay, so we had an idea, or actually Britt did," Santana went on. "We need you to go see Blaine."

"In the future," Brittany added.

"Yes, in the future," Santana breathed. "We need you to get him to write a note, to himself, something he would believe, in his handwriting, that would be from him, that…" she was getting mixed up in her words, and she stopped and shook her head. "We get that note, and then we get it to him, then we can work the rest from there," she got to the point. There was no point beating around the bush.

For a moment, none of them spoke. They had no idea how she would respond, although a couple handfuls of possibilities played in their heads, anything from her laughing right in their face to her lunging at them for not being able to do things on their own. But then after she'd stared at them for a while, she'd sighed and nodded.

"I'll see what I can do. Tomorrow morning, before class…"

"But it's time travel…" Santana frowned as though she expected her to go right in that moment.

"Yes, and I have a job here, remember?" Gemma matched her gaze. "Tomorrow morning, before class," she repeated before leaving the room.

So with no better option, the girls had disbanded, returning to wherever they were meant to be. It should have felt stranger to think that, at some point, the woman they'd believed to be a substitute teacher would be putting on some kind of gadget and hopping into the future to talk to one of their friends, only it wouldn't be him really. Their friend's future self, who would likely know all about what he was going to be asked to do because he would have already lived it. It was a mark to the fact that they'd each one of them been through something stranger than this before.

The next morning, as agreed upon, they'd gathered, waiting for Gemma to bring them what they'd asked for. What if she hadn't pulled through? What if she hadn't managed it?

But Gemma showed up, and she saw them, and discreetly she handed them a sealed envelope.

"Do not, under any circumstances, open this. Just put it where he'll find it, let him take care of the rest," she instructed them.

"Why can't we…" Sugar started to ask, but then Mercedes, who had been the one to receive the envelope, showed it to her. Across the flap, confirming that the envelope had in no way been compromised, was a signature: Blaine's signature. They had seen him sign things before, and it looked a bit different, but not so much that they would think it a forgery. It was different in the way someone's writing was different if they held it up against a sample from when they were younger. It still held enough components that they would know it had been done by them.

"Woah…" Brittany blinked.

"You know I can't keep doing this every time," Gemma told them.

"Then why did you do it this time?" Quinn asked.

"Because I figured it might go a long way in the long run, with anybody else you might have to convince," was all she said before leaving them.

By lunch time, they had yet to get over just what it was they were holding on to. Santana had taken the envelope from Mercedes, stared at it, as they sat around a table in the cafeteria.

"We said we wouldn't open it," Sugar reminded her.

"Who said anything about opening anything?" Santana asked, still staring at the envelope, turning it around slowly, like somehow she might have had x-ray vision. Turning on the flashlight app on her phone, she passed it over the envelope. "Did she line this thing with lead or what?" she groaned before being forced to abandon her quest.

"Okay, so we have it, now what?" Quinn asked. "Where are we going to put it? How is he supposed to magically receive this? What's the context?"

"See, this is why we need to know what's in here," Santana tapped the envelope.

"But we can't," Brittany reminded her, and Santana frowned.

"We could put it in his mailbox, at home," Mercedes offered.

"How much is postage from the future?" Santana joked.

"If you're going to turn down every idea…" Mercedes glared at her.

"I didn't say anything about turning it down, that's solid," Santana promised. "Now who's going to take it there?" They all looked to one another. "Alright, I'll do it," the took the envelope, and she could see the same look on all their faces. They thought she'd open it the first chance she got. She pretended not to see. "So after he gets that note, whatever it says, we'll need to watch him. There's no way to know if he'll tell any of us, or…"

"He might tell Kurt," Mercedes pointed out. "What do we do then?"

"It might not be the worst thing," Quinn shrugged. "We'll probably end up having to tell _him_, too, sooner or later."

"We'll figure out what we need to do when it needs to be done. First things first, I'll deliver the future to him," Santana slipped the envelope in her bag.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	19. Resisting

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**19. Resisting**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

There was a heightened sort of apprehension as they went forward, slowed in their progress due to their having to carry Amery with them. It was going to slow them down, in one way or another, which in turn could lead to mistakes, but what other choice did they have? If they left her, they'd lose her, either as victim or killer, if her trance reasserted itself. She'd been as aware of this as they were, and she'd asked to be knocked out, which they would have gladly done, if they could have stowed her somewhere safe, but they couldn't. If she was unconscious, she'd be heavier to carry, and it would slow them even more.

In this tension, the slowly nearing sound of what they eventually realized to be someone crying had left them so tense that they didn't know how to come back down from it all without losing it a bit themselves.

But as they came upon the source of the cries, they stopped, and the Doctor was left supporting Amery on his own when Blaine detached himself so he might approach the girl pacing about the empty hallway, crying and muttering to herself.

"Brin?" Blaine spoke cautiously. She didn't respond. "Brin?" he tried again, and this time she snapped around, the weapon returning to position all too easily, for what it was shaped like. As soon she saw who it was though, her hands trembled and she let the thing settle back in her arms.

"Stay back!" she told them, retreating.

"It's okay, Brin, we're here to help you," Blaine insisted.

"You can't," she cried. "I'm… I… I remember… I remember…" The first had been to tell him. The second had been out of her own shock. "I'm… I've done things… Bad things… Why did I…"

"Brin, it wasn't you," Donna tried to assist. "They did something to you."

"No, I know that," she sniffled. "We all did," she looked to Amery. "Maybe not… maybe not everything, but we knew something wasn't right. We didn't know…"

At that moment, something happened, and it silenced them all. Blaine, standing as he was in the middle, between Brin and the others, suddenly and abruptly took one lunge forward before backpedalling and retreating to the wall.

"No…" he grunted, gripping at nothing.

"Blaine?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't think it's working anymore… It's getting harder… Harder to control it…"

"You can fight it," the Doctor promised.

"I'm trying," Blaine insisted, looking up now, his eyes finding Brin again. "But just now I got a massive urge to hurt… to…" The girl startled at this, stepping away.

"Don't worry now, you're safe with us, do you hear?" the Doctor looked to her before turning back to Blaine, who found his eyes.

"If I can't… If I don't get control again, you have to do it," he breathed.

"Blaine…"

"No," he cut him off. "I won't hurt a kid, I won't kill… anyone… If anything else, save me from that… If it gets to that, I'd rather you killed me, if there's no other way…"

"If there's no other way," the Doctor reluctantly consented. "So long as you trust that I'm very good at finding other ways."

"I'm counting on that, actually," Blaine managed to chuckle. "I think it's passing," he admitted.

"Good, that's good, focus on that, focus on that husband of yours. Still, you stay back for a while." Blaine agreed.

"How is it that they remember?" Donna had to ask. The Doctor looked to the girls. "This didn't happen before, did it? Everything that they…"

"It's an emotional response," the Doctor guessed. "Strangers were one thing. They're being set on their friends now…"

"Except it doesn't always work, does it?" Donna felt a shiver, remembering Pae's face off with Seyelle. The Doctor looked to Brin, still cowering, looking at them; she was going to run, he could see it.

"Come with us," he told her. "We'll keep you safe," he insisted. She shook her head.

"Brin, I'm not leaving you behind," Amery pulled away from the Doctor, limping and hopping her way toward the younger girl. "Remember when you first came to Isher? What did I tell you?" Brin blinked, trying to sort through her thoughts, which were at the moment battling for control with the conditioning she had received.

"We're… we're family now," she finally remembered. Amery nodded, putting a hand to her shoulder, in part for comfort, in part for support.

But as soon as physical contact had been established, there was something like a flash in their eyes, a fierce return. When it came down to it, an unarmed seventeen-year-old on a broken leg had no chance against a short eleven-year-old with a weapon she'd grown very familiar with against her will. The Doctor and the others could not even move and get them apart in time that Brin's weapon had fired, and Amery tripped and fell, already gone.

It had been enough to free Brin once again. When she saw what she'd done though, she lost it. If Donna had not lunged forward to tear the weapon away from her, she would have turned it on herself out of shame and disgust with herself.

"No! Give it back!" she begged, while the Doctor swept in and took him in his arms. She resisted, tried to free herself, tried to get the thing back that would make it all stop. "I killed her! I killed people! I can't…"

"This is not you, listen, they used you, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… But the best you can do now is get through this, and you will. You'll go on, you'll live. It won't be easy, but then what is? Some of your friends, they're out there. You're family, that's what she said? Help us protect them."

It hadn't gotten her back on track all at once, but after some time, she'd stopped resisting, and she'd breathed deep. She'd looked up at him, and her mind was made up: she'd go with them.

"Come on," Donna offered her hand, having disposed of the weapon.

"Wait…" she crouched next to Amery. She unclasped a bracelet from her wrist, put it on the dead girl's arm. She was crying, and she had to take a moment before she could lean in and whisper at her ear, a mournful apology, whether or not it could bring her back. When she stood, she looked to the Doctor. "What if I can't… What if I…" He came up to her, and carefully he put his hands on either side of her head. He knew from Blaine that it would not hold completely, and not eternally, but it was a start, and if it would reassure her…

"Close your eyes."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	20. One Against Two

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**20. One Against Two**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

No matter how hard she tried not to seem as terrified as she was, they could all feel Brin wanted nothing more than to get out of there. Still, there was no getting out yet, not until they got to the others, so they'd continued moving, aware that they needed to keep all sides covered. This meant keeping their eyes on the road ahead as much as the one lengthening at their backs. They didn't know the entire layout of this place, just as they didn't know whether the others could somehow circle back. And they had to keep their eyes on Brin, both to make sure she would continue following without harming herself, and that she wouldn't fall back into her trance, something that went for Blaine, too. With the way he'd slipped recently, he'd been trying to keep his distance, and they knew it still concerned him.

They'd been so careful to advance quietly that when they heard a loud and sudden crash followed by shouting, Donna let out a stifled shriek, Brin squeezed on to the Doctor's arm, and Blaine fell back against the wall. Whatever was going on ahead of them, the people there did not seem to mind whether they were heard. Willing themselves to move onward, they'd eventually come to realize there was only one person shouting, but there were three of the elite pupils standing there.

Little Cree was facing off against tall Vinya. The nine-year-old was quick on her feet, dodging and sidestepping her way around, but the nineteen-year-old was not so easily duped, and she followed her every move.

The one in the middle, the only one of them who seemed to have a clear head in that moment was one of the boys, another of the older pupils. He looked to be roughly Vinya's age, though it wouldn't be until Brin saw him that they'd know his name.

"Niro!" she blurted out in shock.

"Stay back, all of you," Niro told them, though his eyes hardly left the circling girls. "Brin, are you okay?" he still asked.

"She's been better," the Doctor spoke for her when it became clear she wouldn't.

"I… I killed Amery. I didn't mean to, it just happened!" her tears were returning along with her voice.

"I know you didn't mean to," Niro promised. "I can't get them to stop," he spoke, helpless.

"Just step back," the Doctor told him.

"I can't…" Niro shook his head. "I can't leave her," he looked to Vinya, and she might have been a friend, a girlfriend, or someone he wished was a girlfriend, they didn't know which. All that mattered was that he cared for her very dearly, enough so that, when it became clear she was tiring out, and she would soon slip and make a mistake, Niro did all he could, putting himself in between the two girls.

Whether she saw this as a chance to make something happen, or she would have struck either way, Niro had only just managed to get in there and turn to present himself as Vinya's shield that young Cree struck him down, and he fell, carrying Vinya's weapon down with him, as it slipped from her hands.

What happened next might only have stood out as one of many moments that would remain painfully seared into their memories, but it was marking nonetheless.

They knew the look on someone when they were entranced, and Vinya was still that, very much so. But she had looked to the ground, to Niro's body lying at her feet, dead, and she'd stared for several seconds. They could not say they had any insight into what was going on inside her head at that moment, but when she finally looked away, she looked back to the small girl in front of her, and she wasn't seeing a child. She was seeing the one who'd killed Niro, and she wasn't going to forget or let it slide. Cree must have sensed this turn for revenge, somewhere. She raised her weapon, ready to strike, but all she did was give an opportunity to the taller girl to get a hold of it and turn it on her. She staggered and she fell, still breathing with difficulty. She'd fallen right over Niro, and now the vengefully entranced Vinya was nearing on her, and the shocked onlookers had finally snapped out of it.

"Leave her alone!" Brin shouted, and Vinya looked up. Brin gasped, keeping to the Doctor's side. "Look at her!" she still managed to speak. "Look at her!"

Vinya looked down. Of all the times for Cree to revert to her own mind, she now lay dying, in full awareness of what was about to happen, and they never would have seen her for the killer she had been a moment before. And somewhere in that part of Vinya's mind that found a way to remember Niro and the feelings she'd held for him, she may have found the friendship she held for Cree as well. She took a step back, took one more look toward Brin. She might have run on, as many had already done, but she kept staring at Brin, with her unreadable eyes.

"Three will be chosen, the three who survive," she recited. They were silent for a moment, and in all that had happened in the span of minutes, it was only now they understood. With Niro dead, and Cree quickly fading, there remained only four. There was Vinya, and Brin, and besides them only two more, twelve-year-old Seyelle, and the last boy, a sixteen-year-old named Rolan. "Three will be chosen, three… will leave this place…" She was looking to the Doctor now, as though to ask for confirmation.

"I'm not keeping count, we all go," he promised her. She didn't flinch.

"Three will be chosen," she insisted, before turning the stolen weapon on herself. Brin cried out, but it was too late. Cree had only just taken her last breath, and now Vinya had fallen, with her, and with Niro.

They couldn't look away. All three of them had been alive and in the blink of an eye it seemed… no more.

"We need to find them," Blaine was the first to speak.

"Seyelle and Rolan?" Brin looked up, sniffling.

"They need to know they're safe now," Donna agreed, but the Doctor was still looking at the children on the ground and he shook his head.

"Do they feel safe to you?"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	21. Mission Evans

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**21. Mission Evans**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

When Artie had told Puck about how he'd reached out to Gemma, the way he'd done it, he'd found something almost qualifying of the word pride in his former tormentor's face. They had already patched up the crack in their already tentatively formed friendship, but this put a nice finishing coat on the whole thing, and no crack could be distinguished at all anymore.

Now they had a new task on hand, and they would see to it with all the power in them. They were going to convince Sam Evans that there was such a person called the Doctor, from a world that was not this one.

"So how do we do it?" Artie asked as the pair of them waited outside school that afternoon.

"We tell him about what I went through?" Puck suggested.

"Why you?" Artie frowned.

"Look, no disrespect here, but if you tell him you met an alien, he'll probably think this is just you, being a geek," Puck explained. Artie tried to argue about that, but he knew when he had to give in and agree he had a point. "But if I go and tell him about how _I_ met one and went through time on his ship and all that, well, he might believe it more. I have no reason to mess with him about something like that."

"Okay, maybe," Artie agreed. "But we might have a problem anyway. I tried to tell him about some of this, a couple months ago, and it didn't end well. The minute we bring it up again…"

"Fine, then let me go on my own."

"Hey," a voice called to them, and they looked up to see Sam was headed their way.

"Too late," Artie muttered.

"What are you guys waiting out here for?" Sam asked, looking back to the school as though he expected someone else to come around.

"You…" Puck started to say, and Artie added to the response, speaking at the same time.

"You wouldn't want to hear about it."

"Why not?" Sam asked.

"Because it's about the Doctor," he revealed, and just as Sam was closing his eyes for a beat, remembering what had happened three months before, Puck turned to look at him.

"Dude, I thought we said I'd be the one talking to him about this."

"I know, but…"

"Wait, so now he's got you pulled into this, too?" Sam looked to Puck.

"He didn't pull me into anything, I met him, the Doctor," Puck turned a frown at him. Artie looked at Sam, and he thought for a moment maybe his spur of the moment idea would pay off. He'd just had this thought like maybe Sam would believe Puck more if it came off that Puck hadn't meant to tell him. The way he'd said it, it had sounded exactly like what it was. It had sounded like the truth, his truth.

"You did?" Sam asked. He didn't sound entirely convinced, but then he was still standing there, wasn't he? They might have been on to something.

"I'm not going to talk about this out here, not while my rep isn't completely tanked," Puck shook his head.

"Let's start moving that way," Artie nodded off, away from the school, and after a few minutes they had distanced themselves from the school. It was still entirely possible that Sam was only letting them talk and bury themselves further into ridiculousness, but it could also be that he was opening himself to hearing them out, which could lead to his believing them, and then joining their side of it all.

As they went, Puck shared his story, and Artie made it a point not to interrupt him, no matter how much he might have wanted to. Once he was finished, they'd know what the next step needed to be. As stories went, Puck's was a good one to hear, although sometimes he thought it might have sounded like he was borrowing from Terminator and a bit of Back to the Future. If Artie hadn't known that everything he said was true, he might have thought that. Then something happened that almost made Artie's hope swell up with potential. Sam looked at him and asked him a question.

"So you both met this guy?"

"Yes," Artie nodded. Puck looked like he was about to say something, and Artie had a good feeling that this something would be 'the Doctor was a woman when Artie met her,' and he cut him off with a pointed look. Once they had a better hold of Sam as being one of them, then they could clue him in on regeneration and the finer details of Time… Lordship.

"And of all the planets that are out there, apparently, out of all of time, he managed to meet two guys from the same town, the same school, years apart?" Sam went on. Artie and Puck looked to each other.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Artie admitted. Sam stopped for a moment, sighed and absently touched his once broken nose.

"Alright, look, I… I'm not saying I don't believe any of this… Not saying I believe it either… I just need to think about it for myself."

"Yeah, sure, dude, whatever works for you," Puck insisted.

They'd let their 'target' walk away after that. They were more than happy to give him some time to think, if it meant that they could pull through with a win for their strange little team.

"Weren't we supposed to do this with Blaine?" Puck had a thought as they turned back for the school and Puck's car.

"I'm pretty sure the girls have that one," Artie shrugged.

"Oh, okay," Puck nodded, then smirked after a moment.

"What?" Artie asked.

"We're so going to get our guy before they do," he presented a fist for bumping, and Artie stared at him for a moment, almost too surprised to be on the receiving end. "Come on, don't leave me hanging," Puck insisted, and Artie bumped his fist.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	22. This Is Not Pretend

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**22. This Is Not Pretend**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

Waiting for Blaine to come along so they might move on to the next step of their plan was proving to be more of a patience game than anything else… and they were losing.

They had put the envelope where they figured one would put an envelope that was destined for their younger self. All they knew about the contents was that Gemma would have told Blaine – the older one – to indicate he'd asked someone to deliver the message to him, someone that went by one name: the Doctor. What he'd actually written in order to convince him that this was no prank, that it could only have come from his future self, they didn't know, so they'd have to wait and find out if it would work.

The debate as to who would present herself in order to bait him had been just shy of coming to blows, but finally they had reached an agreement, and it would be Quinn who intercepted him. For that to happen, of course, they needed to get Blaine in such a position that he might be able to 'accidentally' encounter her.

"Wait, there he is!" Sugar pointed, and Mercedes pulled her back, pulling out her phone and texting Santana.

"He's going the wrong way," she groaned, grabbing Brittany by the arm and running off with her.

They just barely managed to get up to him, and when they saw the dazed look on his face, the way he kept his book firmly in hand, they knew their plan was good and ready to go. All they had to do was to redirect him Quinn's way. Santana had half a mind to just go rogue and take up Quinn's role, but she knew well enough that the blonde had more of a shot to convince him than she did.

"What do we do?" Brittany whispered as they approached him from behind. Santana whispered back, and Brittany nodded.

"Hey, Blaine, can we talk to you for a second?" Santana asked, as she and Brittany came up on either side of him, guiding him to where they knew Quinn would be waiting.

"I… uh…" Blaine stammered.

"I was thinking, that is, we… we were thinking," she indicated herself and Brittany. "We should do a number, the four of us together."

"Four…"

"Santana and I…" Britany started.

"And you and Kurt," Santana continued.

"Oh, I…"

"Great, think about it, talk to Kurt, and… Oh, sorry…" she apologized as she 'accidentally' bumped into his shoulder, causing his arm to release and the book to fall and slide along the floor. "See you in Glee Club!" she told him, taking Brittany and moving off down the other way, sparing a look to Quinn as she wheeled up and managed to pick up the book. Blaine was still so confused and he didn't see her as she spotted the envelope wedged in between the pages and made so that it fell in her lap when she sat back up.

"Here," she gave him his book back, then made as though she was just noticing the envelope, picking it up and turning it over in her hand. "Isn't this your handwriting?" she asked. "You're corresponding with yourself now?" Blaine was finally realizing what it was she was holding, and he tried to snatch it away from her as calmly as he could, but she pulled it back, still looking at him. "What's going on, you look a bit spooked right now," she pointed out, putting on as kind and open a voice as she could.

"I can't tell you," Blaine stared at her as though calculating the risks he could take in pulling the envelope away from someone in a wheelchair.

"Why not?"

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"Blaine, we're friends, aren't we?" she asked, and it seemed to either relax or guilt him into considering his options another way. "What is this?" she asked again.

"I found it in my locker, he must have slipped it in there somehow," he shook his head.

"Who's 'he'?" Quinn asked, keeping a tight hold on her tone so it wouldn't come off too anxious.

"I don't know, this doctor guy, I don't…" he frowned. _Bingo._

"The Doctor?" Quinn asked. Blaine looked at her.

"You know who that is?"

"I… yeah… Come here," she nodded down the hall, and he followed her.

X

Sam hadn't even seen them all moving into place, but when the book had thumped to the ground behind him, he'd startled and looked to see what was happening. Santana and Brittany were moving away while Quinn was picking up Blaine's book for him and handing it back. Sam tried not to eavesdrop as he kept going through his things in his locker, but they were just close enough for him to hear, and when the word 'doctor' came up, he froze, and then his ear was recklessly willing to listen in. When they moved out of earshot, he closed his locker door and he followed, stopping outside the room where Quinn took Blaine.

She listened as Quinn told Blaine about a time when she had met this Doctor person, not too long ago. This was just one more story that he was hearing about, though by the sounds of it there might have been more out there, and all it did was force him to consider more and more whether this was actually happening, if there were really aliens, human looking aliens, landing in Ohio and taking so many of his friends around on adventures. He knew how he'd written off the whole thing when Artie had told him about it, but then he was hearing about Puck, and Artie, and Quinn, now Blaine somehow, and all he could think about was his grandfather. He'd died when Sam was eleven, but the one thing he used to say over and over was that there was nothing wrong in changing one's mind on something or someone.

What if this was real? What if they weren't pulling his leg with some big prank and…

He was walking away, before they could find him listening in, and as he'd passed a closed door, he'd felt something like a wind snap, followed by a flash. He had half a mind of opening the door, but then it was opened from the inside… and out came the substitute teacher, Miss Harrison.

She paused, seeing him there, then tipped her head with a smile and walked off down the hall like nothing had happened. Sam was thunderstruck. She hadn't been in there a moment ago, he was positive, even though the door had been shut. Artie _had_ been saying she wasn't who she said she was…

He needed to sit down.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	23. Dial Turn

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**23. Dial Turn**

_Mesiary – in the year 2015_

They could start to feel it, how close they were to being free from this place. Donna felt it, and Blaine, and the hope it had given Brin had been enough to tone down her panic, which was a good thing, after all she'd seen, what she'd done and nearly done, but the Doctor knew it would only last so long. It wasn't over, wouldn't be, until they had gotten away, and regardless of what the others thought, they were not there yet, which made that it didn't matter whether they were miles or steps away from the exit. At any moment, something could come along and stop them, and he entirely expected for it to do just that, especially the closer they came to it. And they still needed to find the others, Seyelle and Rolan.

Knowing they were the only people left wandering the halls still alive, it was easy to predict that when they found one, they would find the other.

By the looks of it, it seemed that the boy and girl's trances had left them halfway, which was to say that they were themselves again, but they still believed they were in danger, and that this danger was the friend standing in front of them.

"Stay away from me!" Seyelle shouted, holding the weapon not as its use would call for but flipped around and brandished like a bat she might swing at him.

"Put that down!" Rolan shouted back, with his weapon in the same hold.

"I'm not putting anything down until you put _that_ down!"

"What, so you can hit me? I don't think so," he shook his head. The Doctor whistled, and while Donna, Blaine, and Brin startled, the other two froze where they stood and looked at him.

"What are you doing here?" Rolan asked.

"Help me, he's going to kill me!" Seyelle begged the lot of them.

"Both of you, put those things down right now and step away from each other," the Doctor instructed them. They looked to each other, back to him, then shook their heads. "Why not?"

"She's armed!" Rolan said.

"He's armed!" Seyelle said.

"Well they… you… won't be, if you both put them down, yes?" No change. "Seyelle, do you want to hurt him?" he asked instead.

"No, I…"

"Rolan, do you want to hurt her?" the Doctor went right on.

"I would never…"

"There you have it, see? No one wants to hurt anyone! Brin, tell them," he tapped the girl's shoulder.

"They did something to our heads, made us do things," she spoke to her friends. "But it's not us." She looked back to Blaine, to Donna and the Doctor. "It's not," she stated, believing it now.

"Please, listen to them," Donna spoke, nodding encouragingly. Seyelle and Rolan shared another look. Everything within them was saying they should keep a close grip on their weapons and an unwavering eye on the other, but then what the others were saying was starting to sound more and more like common sense, and they wanted to put their arms down, to stop being afraid.

"How about you both do it at the same time?" Blaine offered.

"Yes, good, yes, go on," the Doctor nodded.

They nodded, slowly, locking eyes as they prepared to crouch and put down their weapons.

And then a door opened behind them, through which the headmistress entered, carrying a square sort of clunky thing reminiscent of a remote control. When she turned one of its dial, Seyelle and Rolan immediately sprang back into full trance mode, stronger than before, if it was at all possible. Worse yet, as the two of them stepped up to stand to attention before the headmistress, they were joined by Brin… and by Blaine.

"Ah, yes, what a fortunate accident," she declared, looking at him. "I imagine our engineers would be very interested to examine him. It's regretful they'll never get the chance. All the paperwork, all the procedures, the questions… But we will find some use for you yet," she addressed Blaine, even though he gave no reaction at all. He faced forward, his eyes blank. The headmistress looked to the three children standing next to him, giving no mind to the Doctor or Donna as of yet. "And you three, well done, well done," she pressed her hands together, tipping her head forward with something close to reverence. "Now, children, it's time to go."

"No!" Donna spoke before she could stop herself, and the Doctor put an arm before her.

"Whatever you're planning to do with them…" he started to say before being cut off.

"Is of no concern to you, whoever you are."

"So you don't know then," the Doctor nodded.

"What don't I know?" she asked.

"Whoever I am," he stood up straight. The headmistress gave a genial smile.

"Well you're not part of the board, that much I know. The rest, I'm afraid, is of no matter. Once I've gone with my pupils, you will be free to go," she promised, stepping aside so Rolan, Seyelle, and Brin might march out, which they did. "If you succeed in overthrowing him," she added, giving a new wave of her remote in Blaine's direction.

While the headmistress made her exit, leaving the Doctor and Donna behind with him, Blaine had taken hold of his head with both hands for a moment, in clear distress. Neither the Doctor nor Donna had time to go to him, or do much else, and really the Doctor didn't see why they should; he had a good idea what had just been done to him.

When the boy's hands returned to his side and he looked up at them, his eyes had reached an emptiness that was enough to get them properly scared for their lives.

"He's going to kill us, isn't he?" Donna breathed.

"Not if we can help it," the Doctor insisted.

"What about him? He said if things were bad enough… You can't kill him." The Doctor pulled her down the hall, finding her hand.

"Not if we can help it," he repeated. "Now, Donna, an old classic… Run!"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	24. One's True Voice

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**24. One's True Voice**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

They didn't know how long they'd been running before they clued in to how the bodies of those seven who'd fallen here had been removed, along with their weapons. Whoever had done this could only do so much to clean up after the blood, and someone under trance would not give it too much notice, but the Doctor and Donna's minds were clear, and they noticed just fine.

"Alright, enough," the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the next door they encountered and when he heard the click, he hurried to get it open and push Donna through.

"Who knows what's back there?" she protested.

"Who do you see yourself reasoning with right now?" the Doctor told her, and that settled it. They went through the door, closed it behind them, and the Doctor locked it.

Within seconds, they heard Blaine start hitting at the door, and by the way it vibrated, they had to wonder if what they'd done to him had increased his strength in any way. Luckily for them – if they could call it that – the door they'd hidden behind only led to a small closet sort of a room, no people to deal with. Where their luck had to be brought into question was naturally that they were trapped in a small room with no exit, no weapons, and the only exit being 'guarded' by a young man who'd been programmed to kill them. "So this is how it's going to end, isn't it? Why do I feel like we've been here before?" Donna breathed, looking again.

"Here?" the Doctor blinked briefly, and Donna smacked his arm. "How do we get out of here?"

"Let me think," the Doctor told her.

"Sure, nothing pressing, nothing at all," Donna frowned, crossing her arms before herself.

"Bit hard to think with all that noise," he pointed out.

"Try and tell him that," Donna pointed back to the door, and the Doctor blinked, looking at her.

"I meant you," he told her, and he'd never seen so close an example to the whole idea of people having knives for eyes.

"I will pretend I didn't hear that, only because we might be dying otherwise." With that, she stood back, arms still crossed, eyes fixed on him as though to say 'well go on then, think.'

It didn't take him nearly as long as she might have thought before he came up with a solution, but then as soon as this idea played itself on his face, it turned into another look, and she didn't like it at all.

"What?" she asked.

"The sonic only broke him from the trance partway, and that was the small trance. What he's got now, there's nothing on me now I can use that's going to work and break him completely."

"Which means what?" Donna bristled, already getting a feeling she knew what he was suggesting.

"We need to get out of here and get him back to the TARDIS," the Doctor nodded.

"Right, then we'll be tunnelling our way out of here, won't we?" she waved her arms around the room. "Got your shovel?" she tipped her head. He looked at her, just on the edge of nervous, all the while reaching in his pocket and producing what unfolded into exactly that, a shovel. "I was joking," she glared, and he nodded, refolding the shovel and pushing it back into his pocket.

"Of course."

"What were you even doing…"

"If I told you, Harry would not… Never mind," he moved to the door, thinking for a moment. "Hello, yes, Blaine, whatever part of that brain of yours is following orders, we surrender!" he spoke over the noise, and within seconds, it came to a stop. "If you'll step back now, I will open the door," he said as he stuck his ear to the door.

Once he'd heard Blaine back away, he nodded over to Donna and opened the door. Blaine was standing stock still, looking at them. He had no weapon, and they couldn't decide if this made matters better or worse.

"You know what your orders are, and we know what they are as well, but before you do anything, let me ask you this. Whether or not you understand it as such, you serve a master, whoever controls you. Whatever benefits them is absolutely fantastic in your book, right?" Blaine said nothing, but he also did nothing, which the Doctor interpreted as agreement. "So if I were to tell you I have something that your masters would be absolutely devastated not to have in their possession, you would want to bring it to them, wouldn't you?" No response, no move. "This thing, I don't have it with me, but I would be more than happy to show you the way to it, what do you say?"

For a moment, nothing happened, but finally Blaine took a step back, turned to the side, and pointed down the hall.

"Right, thank you, it's that way, yes," he took Donna by the arm, and with their friend/guard marching behind them, they walked right out of the building, welcoming the fresh air as they went along toward the TARDIS. Donna said nothing, but every look she stole in the Doctor's direction had a clear message: you better know what you're doing. He did.

The window of opportunity was very small, once the Doctor was on the TARDIS, but small windows were his specialty, that and big windows.

When Blaine stepped on to the TARDIS, it was all of ten seconds before the Doctor released the pulse that would extract the trance from him.

"Thing about messing with people's heads, always that glaring gap. They don't see a trick even when it's staring them right in the face." When he could see that Blaine was 'waking up,' he hurried to his side. "Blaine, listen, it's very important now, listen. It's all leaving you, that architecture that left you vulnerable. There's information in there, we need it before it's gone if we'll get the others back, do you understand?"

"Yes…" he mumbled.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	25. One Favor

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**25. One Favor**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

She knew at one time or another, if she let herself get closer to Walter, that she would start entertaining the kind of thought that she had now been freely and brazenly entertaining all day. She had been looking for a way not to have to let him go.

It wasn't even just that they'd slept together, although she wasn't going to pretend as though she hadn't been getting a stupidly unavoidable smile whenever the memory came back to her throughout the day. She'd been trying to imagine how most of the guys she knew from back home, in her own time, would have reacted if they'd been put in his place. If she had told any of them what she'd told him, about why she was really posing as a substitute teacher at McKinley and what she was trying to accomplish, would they have been as supportive and helpful as he'd been?

There had been a long time, both before and after she'd started travelling with the Doctor, where she had trouble trusting people, admittedly more so when it came to men. Once she'd started with the Doctor and the more life and death and destruction aspects of things had come about, it had been even harder. The Doctor had done her best to try and help her turn this around for her, and Gemma had to wonder if she was doing this especially because she knew she'd have to send her on this mission she'd been sent on before very long.

She remembered when she'd first come to Lima, in late 2011, and she'd moved in to the apartment, and she'd met her upstairs neighbor for the first time. Immediately, when he'd started to show an interest in her, her antennas went up. What was this one's deal? Considering the reason for her being there, what she needed to do it and why, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe he wasn't who he said he was, if he might be some alien, or just someone from the future, out to stop her.

The Doctor had actually needed to step in, if indirectly, in order to stop her from doing anything crazy. She had assured Gemma she knew this Walter person to be exactly what he presented himself as being. When she tried to find out how the Doctor supposedly knew this, the Doctor refused to say, which could either mean she was meant to figure it out on her own, or the Doctor was trying to have some fun at her expense; it could have gone either way.

With time, she had been forced to admit the Doctor might have been telling the truth. Of course the only way she'd managed to figure this out was by allowing herself to spend at least a little time with her neighbor… and right away she'd known she was in trouble, and she needed to back away before it got any worse. She couldn't let herself fall for him, she couldn't throw his whole life in shambles on the off chance he might like her enough to accept this throwing of his life. She thought she was doing them both a favor.

She had chosen the life she led. Literally, she had chosen it, chosen to travel with the Doctor. She'd heard stories, about how in her past incarnations she, or at the time he, had come upon people, how she didn't know what it was about them that made them exactly the kind of people she would travel with, but always she would know that they were those people. Very rarely was it that it worked the other way around, where the companions found him/her, although she supposed the one who was with him now, where she was currently jumping back and forth to and from, was one who would fall in that category. But Gemma had been one of those. She'd sought her out, because she needed to, for her own reasons, for knowing she was out there and needing to do something for her, as a debt of gratitude.

She knew that, the way things were now, if she asked him to come with her, he wouldn't think about it twice. He would stand up and ask when they were leaving and should he pack for this weather or that. He wouldn't look at the big picture, and this was one of those times when you really needed to look at that big picture.

Suppose that he did come with her and the Doctor, and the three of them went off on adventures. How long could they keep doing this before one or both of them wanted to stop. Then what? Some couples would have to deal with needing to visit their families living on the other side of the country, if they even lived in the same country, and it would be hard, but it would be manageable somehow. If they went back to her time, his family would be old, or dead, and he would have missed out on everything. If they came here, to his time, her parents were neither of them born. They would have to choose, and they wouldn't be able to, not without one of them making the kind of sacrifice they should never have to make.

She must have been concentrating harder than she realized she was, because the next thing she knew, there was a knock at the door and she startled, scrambling to answer it. Her neighbor from across the hall was confusedly holding out an envelope to her, saying this had been in her mailbox, with her address, but it had Gemma's name on it. Gemma quickly mumbled something about an old relative who must have gotten the apartment number wrong, apologized, then shut the door.

It was a note from the Doctor, one of few words: _The decision's yours, not mine._

"Great. Thanks. Big help," she frowned, sitting back down on her bed.

They were all coming that much closer to the end of… all of this, however it was meant to end up. She needed to concentrate, and right now she couldn't do it, not with all this.

"Why couldn't he have been an alien spy?" she fell back with a sigh. "Would have made it so much easier."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	26. Would Be

_A/N: Ah, internet, ah, life... Catching up one day and I'll have another to catch up tomorrow!_

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**26. Would Be**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

Blaine had needed time to stop and collect his thoughts when the world had started coming back to him, though he wouldn't get too much of it.

It had been something different that time, when the headmistress had done whatever she'd done to him. Before, more or less, he'd been made active by association. This time, she had purposefully done something to him, so he would turn on the Doctor and Donna and kill them. He had no recollection of what he might have done during that time, only that when he'd started coming out of it, he still knew things. The Doctor had known somehow that he would know these things, and Blaine had done his best to pass on the information in what way he could, before it was completely gone from his head. When he was entirely himself again, he'd just sat there, on the ground, inside the TARDIS.

After a while, the Doctor had brought him something to drink, and he had started feeling better. When he'd asked what it was, the Doctor had tipped his head to Donna.

"Tea," she answered him.

"Right," he breathed, drinking on. "What happens now?"

"Well, thanks to you, we know where to go," the Doctor revealed. "We know what these masters wanted those children for."

"Why's that?" Blaine wanted to know. He had been the one to tell the Doctor and Donna about it, but the knowledge had left him.

"Plausible deniability," the Doctor went on. When Blaine frowned, he frowned back, stepping up to him. "The targets, three of them, will be found in a children's hospital."

"Send in a goon, they'll point the finger at him," Donna pitched in.

"Yes, that's…" the Doctor looked after her with a disapproving look she knew was aimed at her vocabulary. "That's right."

"But they won't suspect children," Blaine put the pieces together nonetheless. "Why would they want to kill anyone who would help sick kids?"

"Whatever the reason, they didn't see fit to put it in your head, so your guess is as good as mine." The Doctor crouched in front of him, his voice earnest. "If you're not up to this, you don't have to…"

"Just tell me what I need to do," Blaine shook his head, looking back at him.

X

If they didn't know why the masters wanted three people dead so much they would go to the lengths they had gone to secure their killers, they at least knew who these three unfortunates were, which made it much more likely for the Doctor and his companions to work out their plan.

The Doctor wouldn't be entering the hospital, not right away. There was something he needed to get ready, he'd explained to Blaine and Donna, so until it was ready, they would have to do the first part on their own. This first part required for them to locate these would be victims. One of them was a doctor, the second a nurse, and the third, to their surprise, was not staff at all but the father of one of the young patients. They'd decided that Blaine would deal with drawing out the doctor and the nurse, while Donna would get a hold of the father.

As ideas went, this one was born out of one imperative rule: they had to make sure the children would not be collateral damage. If they could draw out the targeted, then their intended killers would have no choice but to follow them. Like Blaine before, the Doctor had pointed out to the two of them how to use their built in failings. They had one job, to eliminate their targets. They needed to be able to get to them if they were going to do that.

So far everything had gone about as well as it could. Blaine had gotten hold of the doctor and the nurse, and Donna had gotten the father, and now they were bringing them out of the hospital. On the inside, they were afraid if things had gone so well that they were bound to go horribly wrong all of a sudden, but then they were out of the hospital, and the Doctor was waiting, his feet grounded, his posture making it clear he was ready and waiting. He had an object balanced on his shoulder, and they had to notice it looked an awful lot like the children's weapon, to which he promised this was both a coincidence and an intended retort from him to the masters. Because the thing he held was not a weapon: it was a pulse.

When the children came out in search of their targets, Brin, Seyelle, and Rolan, all three wearing hospital gowns as though they'd been patients themselves, the Doctor aimed the thing he'd been working on at them, and with the flip of a switch the pulse was released. In a matter of seconds, all of the masters' work had been undone, which gave the Doctor only some small amount of satisfaction; it had still come with the price of seventeen dead children.

X

The doctor, the nurse and the father had been sent on to return to where they belonged, two of them tending to the children, one visiting his own. Whatever they thought they'd been witness to, they were left to make up their own stories.

Their would-be assassins had been taken back to Isher Academy. The Doctor had been looking forward to get a word in with their masters, but even as they arrived, they could see the school was in turmoil. Mysteriously, the headmistress had disappeared, as had one of the masters, and one of the guards. There was no trace left of them, and if they hadn't seen them in the halls every day, in class, or by the vault, guarding the instruments, they might never have known for sure that they'd been part of the Isher world. Then there were those who claimed there was no such thing as an elite program at Isher, and when they mentioned the instruments, the remaining masters were not shy about taking them into the vault, showing how there were no instruments matching the descriptions they gave.

It would all come to light somehow, some of it at least. Elite program or no, seventeen deaths would surely spell the end for Isher. The Doctor wanted to prevent that from happening, but he couldn't do it, especially now… Those responsible had gotten away, and he couldn't forget that.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	27. Innocence Returned

_A/N: And there's yesterday's chapter... now back on track, today's chapter later :)_

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**27. Innocence Returned**

_Mesiary, in the year 2015_

Brin was always the first to wake in her dormitory. She knew what the sky looked like, that it would be an hour at least before the next so-called early riser, which was Pae, began to rise at all.

So when she opened her eyes and found a sky closer to sunset than it was to sunrise, she panicked, sitting up and looking around. The room was quiet, all the beds empty and made, all but hers… and two more. Seyelle was also in her bed, and the third… "Rolan?" she blinked. What was he doing in Amery's bed? Where was _she_? Where were the others? And why were the three of them there, sleeping at sunset, in their regular clothes?

She got up, padded along so not to disturb the others, and she walked out of the girls' dormitory, looking up and down the corridor before going to the boys' dormitory door and peering inside. Empty beds, all of them. Where was everybody?

"Brin…" She froze. She knew that voice, but it couldn't… She turned, and she ran and leapt into his waiting arms.

"Dad!" she hugged him. "What are you doing here?" There was something strange about the way he looked at her, but she was so happy to see him that she didn't pay it too much attention.

"I've come to take you home," he replied. She stood back.

"Home? But what about school?"

"They've had to close it for the time being," he said, repeating what he'd been told to say by the man in the long coat. "I'll tell you all about it, but we need to hurry or we'll miss our transport."

"I need to pack," she turned to return to her room.

"I've already got everything," he assured her, taking her hand and leading her away.

"Why was I sleeping so late?" Brin asked, just as she accidentally bumped into a woman walking by her. She looked up at her, finding red hair and a kind smile. "I'm sorry," she tipped her head and carried on following her father.

Donna watched her go before turning to the Doctor.

"She really won't remember? None of it?" she asked.

"She shouldn't," the Doctor promised as they looked into the girls' dormitory, where now Seyelle was stirring. They let her be, though they signalled her mother and father, who were waiting down the hall.

"That's good," Blaine nodded as they walked on. "She shouldn't have to live with that kind of memory."

"And now they won't," the Doctor agreed.

Brin, Seyelle, and Rolan had not only known their memories would be erased, they'd agreed to it. They didn't understand entirely what had happened, what they'd been made a part of, but they knew what had happened because of it. They knew that all their friends, who had been in this elite program… which had not existed at all, as it turned out… were dead, many of them having been poisoned on a bus, the others killed by each other, including the three of them still living now. They had killed people, killed friends, and strangers before them. No matter how they tried to look at it and remember that it hadn't been their choice so much as something that was forced on them, it didn't change the fact that they had been used, made to kill, and that was never going to sit well with them. If they could forget, then they wanted to forget.

Before they no longer remembered, they'd sat in the girls' dormitory, Brin, Seyelle, Rolan, and Blaine – as they asked him to join them – and they made music, one last time, what remained of the so-called elite, in memory of all those who'd been lost. They returned to their own instruments, not those they'd been made to learn how to handle with the elite. Blaine had to improvise, unfamiliar as he was with the songs of Mesiary, but he caught on quick, and the moment served its purpose. They sat in silence when they were done; it was time now to forget.

One by one they sat, and the Doctor crouched in front of them, instructing them to close their eyes, and before they had much time to even ask themselves what would happen next, they were losing consciousness. After they were down, they would be helped into their beds, where they would sleep until they woke again, with no recollection of the last few days, and their parents waiting to take them home. Eventually they would have to be told, not the truth, the proper truth, but the one that was being made known, which was that a terrible incident had occurred at Isher Academy, causing the deaths of several of their students and the closure of the school until further notice. What this incident was would also have to be told to the three of them, but as there was little to no chance they would ever be allowed to return or see each other again, this could be left at their parents' discretion.

When the children were gone, all three, all the Doctor, and Donna, and Blaine would be left to think about, as everything else had been thought about in as close and agonizing detail as it could be, was all the potential that had been lost to the world. The elite program may have been fake, but the children's talent hadn't been. Now all those bright young minds had been snuffed out, and all the accomplishments they might have reached, all these creations they would have offered to the world near and far, would never come about. Three of them remained, yes, but would they ever be the same either? They tried to go on the side of optimism, had to, because it was all they had left. Maybe they'd still get there, do something magnificent. Or they might do something small, which in return would cause something else to come about in the future. There was still time.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	28. Stories to Share

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**28. Stories to Share**

_Inside the TARDIS_

It was all over now, and as much as they knew it, something about being back in the TARDIS made them feel… heavy. Not so long ago they'd all been going about their business, travelling along, going on errands. Then they'd been brought together by happenstance – for the most part and as far as Donna knew – and they had been hurtled into this… all this… Now they were meant to return to their lives as though the faces of those seventeen dead would not be haunting them.

When the TARDIS landed back where it had been, when Blaine had stepped on board, there was a brief moment, while Donna said her goodbyes to him, where he shared a look with the Doctor. Both of them knew that once Blaine left the ship, he was not likely to see any of them ever again, but that in turn the Doctor would see him again, later on in his life. He would be meeting a younger version of him, not by much, who would in turn be meeting the Doctor, as far as he was concerned, for the first time ever.

Before he did step out, he would say his goodbyes, too, but along with them he would add a request, one that might have been considered overstepping but that he couldn't go without making. He made sure it was just the two of them before he asked the Doctor if he might come and see Kurt again sometime, let him know what was really going on. He had never known the truth about the Doctor, not until the events at their school, and he wished so much for him to have an adventure of his own. What Blaine had been through with him now had been more terror than wonderment, but he had experienced something he wouldn't want to forget either. Whether or not the Doctor would heed his request was entirely up to him; Blaine didn't want to know the answer, not from him.

Watching the ship disappear as he reintegrated his own city, he was aware of the fact that he had not travelled in time, only in space, which meant that far away, right now, on Mesiary, the Isher Academy was still picking itself up… or would that still be a little while away for them? The Doctor had brought him back to the same time he'd left, hadn't he?

"Blaine, can we talk?"

He jumped, startled, and he turned to find himself standing face to face with the woman he'd once believed to be a substitute teacher.

"Gi… Gemma," he blinked, correcting himself. Even after he'd known about her real name and identity he'd had trouble correcting himself on it. "What are you doing here, I…" He stopped, slowly understanding what was about to happen. "You want me to write that note I found, don't you?" he asked, and she nodded, pulling a pen, an envelope, and a piece of paper from her bag. For a beat he was afraid he wouldn't remember what the note had said, but she pointed out that whatever he chose to write, that would be what it had said, and she was right.

He wrote the note, folded it and slipped into the envelope, which he sealed and signed across the flap, to show it hadn't been tampered with, and he gave it back to her. She thanked him, and she was gone, walking off like it was any other day. She was gone from sight, and he knew if he'd followed her at all he would have seen her literally disappear, as she returned to three years ago in Lima.

He needed a few minutes to settle down after that, with the quick succession of events. He needed to go back home after that, and while of course he would be able to tell Kurt, he didn't want him to worry more than he had to. His husband did worry about him sometimes, but Blaine loved him that much more for that.

It had taken him nearly all the way back to the apartment before he remembered what he'd actually been going out for when he'd spotted the Doctor and Donna, and he jogged back for a quick run to the store where he scooped up the cleaning supplies, then the bakery for a reward treat when they'd be through with their spring cleaning.

Stepping through the door, he could hear music which told him Kurt had started without him. Even then, he froze in the door to the second bedroom, which had been turned into something halfway between a music room and an office. The shelves that lined two of the walls, top to bottom, had been emptied out and now their contents were all around the floor, in haphazard piles, at the center of which sat a frazzled looking Kurt.

"I thought we said we weren't getting into that one yet," Blaine pointed out. Kurt looked up.

"You were taking too long," he shrugged, then blinked, getting a look at him. "Did you run?" Well there was no point in beating around it.

"I ran into the Doctor," he told him, and Kurt stared. "I know," he put his bags down, sidestepped his way around the stacks on the floor, until he could come and sit with him. "It wasn't the one from McKinley, at your graduation, it was the other one, him and… and Donna. They were out there, I didn't know what they were doing here, and then there was an instrument…"

He ran through his adventure, going to Mesiary, to the Isher Academy, meeting the children, finding out what they'd been up to, then the concert, the bus, and the building where the others had been left to kill one another.

"We could only save three of them," Blaine bowed his head. "And then…"

"They got away," Kurt filled in, and Blaine looked at him.

"How'd you know?" he asked, to which Kurt only smiled, giving a shrug and a pointed look. Blaine stared. "He did go to you, didn't he?" he smiled back. Kurt was playing coy. "What happened, what did you do?"

"We went after them."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	29. Who's Next

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**29. Who's Next**

_April 2012 – Lima, Ohio_

Walter had called her sometime mid-morning and offered to take her out to lunch, so she didn't have to 'suffer the cafeteria.' Gemma had smiled to herself and graciously accepted. She was not going to be doing either of them any favors by hiding away, especially not if she was meant to be figuring some things out. She wanted to ask him what he wanted to do, but she hadn't figured out the way to make him really understand what she was asking yet, and until she did, it was better not to try.

He'd picked her up from McKinley, and he'd taken her to the restaurant, nothing too fancy for a lunch date, but still with its own specialness. It had been one short stretch of time for them to be together, sat across from one another, and she was forced to admit that as much as she'd tried to keep herself so seriously minded to her mission of sorts, he was getting her to unwind more and more, to laugh and be overall happy.

She thanked him profusely once he'd driven her back, going so far as to allow herself a quick-but-not-too-quick kiss, pulling back before any of the students or faculty passing by could take any notice. She got out of the car, watched him drive off… The afternoon looked so much more promising now.

When Gemma walked by the choir room and heard several voices talking at once, she stopped and turned back, peering inside with a sudden fear that they would all be back to arguing. They'd been near to blows the last time, by the looks of it, and she didn't want to think it might be happening again.

But they weren't arguing. If anything, they were all sharing, as close to eagerly as one could be. It seemed they were all telling both Blaine and Sam about their respective encounters with the Doctor, and going by the looks on both boys' faces, they'd finally been sold on it.

"There's a spot near my elbow that still grows cat hair," Brittany declared. "I have to shave it all the time." Santana's face gave a slight cringe, all too aware of the last vestiges of the blonde's 'transformation.' She still cultivated a certain fear that her nails would turn to claws…

Sam had been the one to spot the sub in the door, and he sat up abruptly. He would know the truth about her by now, though Gemma guessed he still associated her with the incident with his nose.

"I see you've been busy," she tipped her head with a smile as she walked in.

"You're really not a teacher?" Blaine had to ask.

"Don't tell Figgins," she shook her head.

"Do you know how I got this?" he pulled the envelope from his bag.

"I do," she nodded, before turning to the others. "Everything alright?" she asked them, and they knew she wasn't asking them how they'd done on their tests or what they'd had for lunch. They'd done the not entirely simple thing of convincing, sight unseen, both Blaine and Sam that there was such a being known as the Doctor, who wasn't human and travelled in time and space in a blue police box. For something like this, they always ran the risk that their efforts in being convincing might have gone and convinced more than just those they'd been trying to bring in, which wasn't always a good thing.

"We were careful," Quinn promised.

"Good," Gemma nodded to her; she trusted them.

"So what happens now? Do we have to bring anyone else in?" Artie asked.

"Well, I…" she started to speak, just as Will poked his head in the room and stepped in.

"Any of you seen Kurt around?" he asked, and Gemma turned to look at him. "Oh, hi," he hadn't realized it was her standing there.

"Kurt's not here," she told him. "Why?" Will looked perplexed.

"I don't know, I was going to talk to him about his solo, he was at his locker, I turned around for a few seconds and now I can't find him anywhere. I figured he might be here, with you guys," he nodded to his students. They hadn't seen him either.

"I'm sure you'll find him eventually," Gemma nodded to him.

"Right," he looked back out into the hall like maybe he'd find him right this second. He went on his way, and after a beat, Gemma turned back to the group. The teacher's appearance had stirred a new curiosity.

"Is he going to be part of this… whatever it is?" Santana asked. "Because it might be weird if we have to do that."

"No, well… Not at far as I know. If we don't need to tell him anything, then we should keep it that way, alright?" The others nodded quietly. "Good."

"So who's the next one we have to talk to then?" Puck asked.

"Actually, I don't think you need to worry about that," Gemma told him.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm pretty sure it's being handled as we speak."

Just to be sure, once she'd left the kids to their own devices and made sure they wouldn't follow her and draw more attention than they needed to, she'd gone to find Kurt's locker.

It was shut, locked, and to most anyone might have looked completely normal, but as she touched the door, Gemma had the most distinct feeling like the door had been shut in haste. She tried to imagine it, to pretend she was Kurt, standing there… His departure had not been random, and Will Schuester could keep looking as much as he wanted, but for the time being, he would not find Kurt Hummel anywhere in this school; he'd have to be back though, sooner rather than later.

TO BE CONCLUDED (TOMORROW)


	30. Stories to Finish

**"Instrumental Glory"**

**30. Stories to Finish**

_Inside the TARDIS_

They'd left Blaine back where they had found him, and once again they were in transit. The Doctor looked to Donna as she absently walked around the console, observing every switch and key as she passed. He knew what Blaine had told him before, and he'd been fine to overlook it before, because what else could he do, but now… There were so many things he hadn't told Donna, his conversation with Blaine being the second.

X

_The day before. San Francisco, California – in the year 2015_

"Alright, look," the Doctor cut in. "We're here, I'll go inside, you stay and reminisce, yes?"

"Sure, go on," Donna had waved him off, and rather than retort, the Doctor went into the building to look into what they'd come for in the first place.

He wasn't even entirely sure it would be there, although the signal had been had strong as any signal could be, practically shouting for him to come and have a look, and he could never resist something like that, could he?

When he'd finally come up and spotted it, he'd known that had to be the source of the signal, and he was so sure of it that he didn't stop to look at the woman sitting nearby.

"Took you long enough." He turned, and there she was, sitting, casually looking at her watch. He had never seen her long enough in a sort of stationary, not running way, and he wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't still do it. "I thought, why not, I'll wait, I'll say hello… Seemed like the nice thing to do. I was this close to just leaving, but now you've made it at last. So this is where I get out," she smiled, getting up.

"Who are you?" he asked, and she chuckled.

"Oh, I'm not telling you that yet, am I? Although I have heard what you've been calling me so far… Shimmer girl… It'd almost be worth telling you my name so you'd call me that instead, but… no, not yet," she shook her head. "Don't worry, Doctor, we'll meet again, a few times, by the looks of it," she showed a small notebook, and he blinked. "A gift from you… eventually," she confirmed. "Well, there's what you came for, so go on, take it, and I'll see you later," she smiled, tapping the vortex manipulator on her arm and disappearing before his eyes.

So she'd come to face him… which could be a good thing, or much, much more trouble. He could have worked to track her down right then and there, but then there was the thing sitting there, the object he'd tracked, and he only had to look at it to know it deserved his undivided attention. So shimmer girl, as she would remain until he had a proper name for her, would have to wait… again.

X

_Sometime later, following the return of the Stolen Earth…_

He had tried to put it behind him, to put Donna at the back of his mind, because he had to, because… well, what else could he do? She was gone, and she had recollection of him, not could she… ever.

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't close the book on Donna Noble and he needed to… He just needed to. He needed to do something, for her, whether she'd know it or not. So much unfinished business still, so much…

He sat up, and without so much of a second thought to it, because those usually tried to tell you that you were about to do something stupid, when you were perfectly capable of facing to your own stupidity, than you very much, as well as you could make your own decisions. So he decided, and that decision was that there _was_ a bit of unfinished business when it came to Donna Noble, and maybe he couldn't finish it with her, but then she wasn't the only unfinished business he had; he could have gone on for days on that… could have gone on for decades.

As it was, when it came to the thing he sought to finish for her, he remembered a young man, who had been as much a part of it as she'd been, and how he'd asked him a favor. How he was ever going to attend to this request, or when, the Doctor hadn't known, but here was a readymade way for him to accomplish one more thing.

He would find the other boy, who was to be the young man's husband. One trip, just one, and they would be square.

THE END

_A/N: Tomorrow starts the next story in this series, "A Common Cause"_


End file.
